Comiso

Comiso (), is a comune of the Province of Ragusa, Sicily, southern Italy. As of 2017, its population was 29,857.
History.
In the past Comiso has been incorrectly identified with the ancient Greek colony of Casmene.
Under the Byzantines a new borough began to grow on Comiso's present site around the monasteries of St. Nicolò and Saint Blaise, expanding further under the later Norman and Aragonese domination of Sicily. It was later a fief of the Chiaromonte, Cabrera and Naselli families: the latter, counts of the city from 1571, boosted the economy of the city and built new district outside the ancient walls.
Comiso was devastated by the 1693 earthquake and rebuilt on the same spot as the old ruins in the Sicilian Baroque style.
The United States Air Force deployed Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) to Comiso Air Base in June 1983. Women from Italy, Europe, and other parts of the world created a peace camp in Comiso in 1983 to protest the building of the base. They were inspired by women activists at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in England.
The missiles were eventually dismantled after the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was signed by the former Soviet Union and the United States on 8 December 1987. The last 16 GLCMs left Comiso Air Base in 1991 and the American-occupied part of the base was returned to Italian control.
Geography.
Comiso borders with the municipalities of Chiaramonte Gulfi, Ragusa and Vittoria.
The municipality has two hamlets ("frazioni"): Pedalino and Quaglio. The town west of Ragusa and 6 east of Vittoria.
Economy.
The main productive sectors are agriculture (wine and vegetables) and trades, including smithery, cabinet making and marble work. The Comisana breed of sheep takes its name from Comiso.
Transport.
Comiso is connected to the nearby towns and cities by bus service and has a railway station, which lies on the Syracuse–Ragusa–Gela–Licata–Canicattì line. The train journey to Ragusa is 30 minutes, to Syracuse 2 hours 30 minutes, and to Licata 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Comiso Airport is located only north of the town. It was previously a military base and it re-opened as a civil airport in 2013.
The main roads serving Comiso are the SS.115 ("Sud Occidentale Sicula") and the SS.514 ("di Chiaramonte").


Palace of Peace and Reconciliation

The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation (, "Beibıtşılık pen kelısım saraiy"), also translated as the "Pyramid of Peace and Accord", is a pyramid in Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, that serves as a non-denominational national spiritual centre and an event venue. Designed by Foster and Partners, with a stained glass apex and windows by architectural artist Brian Clarke, the Palace was constructed to house the triennial Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, and completed in 2006.
History.
Built by Sembol Construction at a cost of 8.74 billion Kazakh tenge (approx. $58 million), the project was conceived as a permanent venue for the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, which meets triennially in a purpose-built conference chamber at the apex of the pyramid. In 2011 and 2013, the International Astana Action Film Festival was held in the Palace.
Building.
The pyramid portion of the building is 62m high and sits on a earth-covered block. All of this construction is above ground level. Though the landscaping of the Presidential Park rises up to cover the lower levels, these are not in fact basements.
The structure is made up of five "stories" of triangles, each of which is 12 m per side. The lower portions, three "stories" of triangles, are clad in pale granite. The upper two rows of triangles, four triangles per side, are clad in 9700 square feet of stained glass, an artwork by architectural artist Brian Clarke which forms the glazed apex, and incorporates ceramic glaze screen-printed imagery of doves in flight, as do the twenty eight diamond-shaped stained glass windows on the four sides of the lower level of the building, which total 1076 square feet.
Construction is of steel frame for the pyramid and concrete for the lower levels. The engineers had to design the building to withstand expansion and contraction due to temperature variations of over 80 °C, from -40 to over 40 °C - leading to an expansion of the building of up to 30 cm. Due to the extreme climate of the city, the engineers locked down one corner of the pyramid, and placed the three other corner on bridge bearings, a common technique for building bridges, but used in a building for the first time.
The Pyramid contains accommodations for different religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism and other faiths. It also houses a 1,300-seat opera house, a national museum of culture, a new "university of civilization", a library and a research center for Kazakhstan's ethnic and geographical groups. This diversity is unified within the pure form of a pyramid, 62 m (203 ft) high with a 62x62m (203x203ft) base. The building is conceived as a global center for religious understanding, the renunciation of violence and the promotion of faith and human equality.
The Pyramid of Peace expresses the spirit of Kazakhstan, where cultures, traditions and representatives of various nationalities coexist in peace, harmony and accord. Bathed in the golden and pale blue glow of the stained glass (colors taken from the Kazakhstan flag), 200 delegates from the world's main religions and faiths will meet every three years in a circular chamber based on the United Nations Security Council meeting room in New York.
The building was designed by the British architects Foster and Partners (lead design). Turkish architectural firm Tabanlıoğlu Architects undertook construction information packages for the Foster design and engineers Buro Happold undertook lead structural and services design. The Foster team was led by architects Nigel Dancey, Peter Ridley and Lee Hallman. Sembol Construction undertook a Design and Build contract, and were ultimately responsible for the final details and finishes, some of which varied considerably from the Foster and Tabanlıoğlu (Tabanlioglu) intent. Auditorium and performance equipment design was by Anne Minors Performance Consultants and acoustics by Sound Space Design.


Coatbridge Library

Coatbridge Library is a public library in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Original location.
The building was designed by Alexander Cullen and built in 1905. It is a Carnegie library; its construction was financed by money donated by the Scottish-American entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie officially opened the library on 7 June 1906 in person; he received the ceremonial freedom of burgh of Coatbridge in return.
The building was category B listed by Historic Scotland in 1993. It is a large, two-storey building of pink Corsehill sandstone, in the Beaux-Arts style. The design was chosen by competition. Built on a steep hill on Academy Street, it has an imposing looming presence. The rear of the building can be seen on the Coatbridge skyline when approached from the west via the A89 road.
In 2016, and after the relocation of the library services in 2010, permission was granted to the Clyde Valley Housing Association to convert the former Carnegie library into residential accommodation. Grant funded assistance came from Historic Environment Scotland, after the library was identified by the Coatbridge Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme as a funding priority.


Munich Kammerspiele

The Munich Kammerspiele (German: Münchner Kammerspiele) is a state-funded German-language theater company based at the "Schauspielhaus" on Maximilianstrasse in the Bavarian capital.
History.
The company was founded in 1906 in Schwabing as the private troupe of Erich Ziegel. Beginning in 1917, Otto Falckenberg served as director; in 1926, he moved the company into the "Schauspielhaus", (built in Art Nouveau style in 1901 by Richard Riemerschmid and Max Littmann). Since 1933, the Münchner Kammerspiele has been a municipal theater company of the City of Munich. In 1961, the "Werkraumtheater" has served as its second stage. In 2001, the company gained a rehearsal stage next to the "Schauspielhaus" in a large building designed by Gustav Peichl.
Directors.
Since the 1920s, the Münchner Kammerspiele has presented numerous world premieres, including works by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Frank Wedekind, and Bertolt Brecht. Brecht, Bruno Hübner, Axel von Ambesser, Fritz Kortner, Peter Stein, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Robert Wilson, George Tabori, Erwin Faber, Max Schreck, and other important actors and writers have staged plays with the company, often resulting in awards.
Artistic leadership.
One famous producing-director (Intendant) of the Münchner Kammerspiele was Falckenberg (1917–1944). Known as an expert in Expressionism in Germany during the Weimar Republic, he was credited with producing or directing many celebrated productions at the company, including Brecht’s first staged play, "Drums in the Night", in 1922, as well as works by Wedekind, August Strindberg, and William Shakespeare. Since the end of World War II in 1945, artistic leadership has been in the hands of Erich Engel (1945–1947), Hans Schweikart (1947–1963), August Everding (1963–1973), Hans-Reinhard Müller (1973–1983), Dieter Dorn (1983–2001), and Frank Baumbauer (2001–2009). In 2010, Johan Simons was appointed artistic director.


Timberline Cabin

The Timberline Cabin in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA was built in 1925 to house workers on the Fall River Road. The National Park Service rustic style cabin was designed by the National Park Service's Landscape Engineering Division under the direction of Thomas Chalmers Vint. The cabin was later used as a patrol cabin and as a caretaker's residence.
The one-story cabin stood above the timberline. It was built of concrete with a stone veneer. The roof framing used peeled logs with an asphalt roll roofing weather surface, protected by a log lattice on top. The cabin had two doors and ten windows, and measured about by .
The Timberline Cabin was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 1988. It has since been demolished.


Jakarta Kota railway station

Jakarta Kota Station (, station code: JAKK) is a railway station, located in the old city core of Kota, Jakarta, Indonesia.
The station was named "Batavia Zuid" (or "South Batavia") until the beginning of the 20th century. The station was also popularly known as the Beos Station as an abbreviation of the station's former owner "Bataviasche Oosterspoorweg Maatschapij" (BOS).
Jakarta Kota Station serves as a main station, along with Gambir Station, Jatinegara Station, and Pasar Senen Station, for several intercity train lines across Java island. This station also serves three of the six KRL Commuterline train lines, which operate in the Jakarta metropolitan area.
History.
The first station was built in 1887 by the BOS, a private railway company. The station was named "Batavia Zuid" ("South Batavia") to distinguish it from the older "Batavia Noord" ("North Batavia") station (owned by the Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij, another private railway company), which was situated a small distance to the north, directly behind the former city hall. The public railway company Staatsspoorwegen acquired both the southern and northern station in 1898 and 1913 respectively.
The southern BOS station was closed in 1923, and was rebuilt between 1926 and 1929, during which all rail services were temporarily taken over by the "Batavia North" station. The station building was designed in 1927-1928 by the architects Asselbergs, Ghijsels and Hes from the architectural company "Algemeen Ingenieurs-en Architectenbureau" (AIA) in Batavia. During construction in 1928-1929 concrete from the "Hollandsche Beton Maatschappij" ("Dutch Concrete Company") was used. The main building was the designed with 12 railway tracks, designated to connect Batavia with Buitenzorg, the port of Tandjoeng Priok, and the port of Merak near the Sunda Strait with a ferry connecting Western Java with Southern Sumatra. The new and current building was officially opened on 8 October 1929 with a private ceremony by the company staff. All rail services to the old city were then reassigned to the new southern station, while the remaining northern station was demolished.
The new station was nicknamed BEOS after the previous station owners, the BOS. Officially named "station Batavia Stad" ("Batavia City station"), it is located at the "Stationsplein" ("Station square") in "Batavia Benedenstad" ("Downtown Batavia"), nowadays "Jalan Stasiun Kota Barat". The station was appointed a historical and cultural landmark status in 1993.
Building.
The design of the station by the Dutch architect Frans Johan Louwrens Ghijsels (born 8 September 1882) is a combination of Western Art Deco and local architecture styles.
Jakarta Kota Station is a two-storey station surrounded by streets on three sides with one main entrance and two side entrances. The main entrance and hall are characterized by a barrel vault roof with openings horizontally composed with the top dominated by vertical units (lunettes).
The inside wall of the hall is finished with rough-textured brown ceramic and the outside wall at the bottom of the whole building was covered with green-yellowish plaster. The station floor uses yellow teak and grey wood, and for the platform floor yellow waffle teakwood is used. Jakarta Kota Station has six platforms serving 12 tracks. The platforms are sheltered by canopies supported by steel columns.
Services.
Both regional intercity trains and local commuter trains start from this station:


Gilbert Row

The Gilbert Row, as of 2005 often referred to as Emery Row, is a group of historic rowhouses in the southern part of the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Composed of six individual small houses and a more substantial structure designed as a commercial building, the row was built by the real estate firm of Thomas Emery's Sons according to a design by the Steinkamp Brothers architectural firm. Built in 1889, the complex became a model for many residential complexes constructed by Thomas Emery's Sons during the 1890s, including multiple apartment-style properties in Walnut Hills.
Buildings in the Gilbert Row are generally constructed on foundations of stone; their walls are built of brick or iron, and they feature other elements of brick and stone. Most buildings in the group do not feature iron: it is only present in the cast iron front of the building constructed as a store. Typical houses in the row feature porches with hip roofs, wooden posts with chamfered and reeded details, lattice-shaped valences, and ornamental brackets. Setting the complex apart from almost all other groups of rowhouses in the city is its general architectural style: it is a clear example of the Queen Anne style of architecture, which was rarely employed in the construction of rowhouses in Cincinnati.
In May 1982, the Gilbert Row was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; it qualified for inclusion because of its well preserved and historically significant architecture, which was seen as important throughout the local area. Little more than a year later, a portion of southern Walnut Hills bounded by Morris, Gilbert, and Sinton Avenues was designated a historic district, the Gilbert-Sinton Historic District, and listed on the National Register, and the buildings of the Gilbert Row were among the district's contributing properties.
The structure underwent a complete renovation between May 2005 and November 2006, transforming the building into 12 townhomes and 6 condominiums. Starting in 2017, Walnuts Hills is undergoing a renaissance, returning to it former role as one of Cincinnati's premier neighborhoods for arts, entertainment, and nightlife.


John James (architect)

John James (c. 1673 – 15 May 1746) was a British architect particularly associated with Twickenham in west London, where he rebuilt St Mary's Church and also built a house for James Johnson, Secretary of State for Scotland, later Orleans House and since demolished. Howard Colvin's assessment of him was that of "a competent architect, but he lacked inventive fancy, and his buildings are for the most part plain and unadventurous in design".
Life.
The son of a Hampshire parson also named John James, he attended the Holy Ghost School, Basingstoke, of which his father was headmaster. He was then apprenticed in 1690 to Matthew Banckes, Master Carpenter to the Crown 1683–1706, whose niece he married, and he lived for a while at Hampton Court Palace. He was employed at Greenwich, where in 1718 he became joint Clerk of the Works with Hawksmoor, whom he succeeded as Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey, where he completed Hawksmoor's west tower. In the interim he was appointed master carpenter at St. Paul's Cathedral, where he assisted Sir Christopher Wren and succeeded him in 1723 as Surveyor of the Fabric of St Paul's Cathedral. He was Master of the Carpenters' Company in 1734.
In 1714 he started work on St George's Church, Tiverton, which was finally completed in 1733.
In 1716 he replaced James Gibbs as one of the two surveyors to the Commissioners for the Building of Fifty New Churches – the other being Nicholas Hawksmoor. He designed one church for the commissioners – St George's, Hanover Square – and collaborated with Hawksmoor on the design of two others, St John Horsleydown in Southwark and St Luke Old Street. At St Alfege's Church in Greenwich, he recased the medieval tower and added a steeple in 1730, the rest of the church having been entirely rebuilt by Hawksmoor for the commissioners in 1712–14. James also designed St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe in 1714–15 and St Lawrence, Whitchurch near Edgware around the same time. He also re-clad the medieval tower of St Margaret's, Westminster 1735–37 in a 'papery gothick manner' (VCH Middlesex Vol.XIII City of Westminster Part 1 P.144).
He was the professional on site for the construction of East India House, Leadenhall Street, London, to designs by the merchant and amateur architect Theodore Jacobsen, 1726–29.
Among several buildings in and around Twickenham, John James designed St. Mary's Church after it collapsed in 1713 (with the exception of its surviving west tower).
Also in south-east London, James designed Wricklemarsh, "a pioneer Palladian mansion" (Colvin) and in fact his only Palladian-style structure, for Sir Gregory Page in 1723. He was also probably the architect for the building now known as Ranger's House, Blackheath, London (c.1722–23).
The house he designed for himself around 1725 – Warbrook in Eversley, Hampshire – is one of the few surviving houses built by an eighteenth-century architect for his own use. He may also have designed Hursley House, Hursley, Hampshire, for (later, Sir) William Heathcote, and Barnsley House in Gloucestershire is now usually attributed to him, c. 1720.
Writings.
He published a pamphlet (1736) in the pamphlet war over the design of Westminster Bridge, for which he had submitted a design, which, though not accepted by the Commissioners, was accounted "clearly and well described". Competent in Latin, French and Italian, he translated Andrea Pozzo's treatise on perspective as "Rules and Examples of Perspective, proper for Painters and Architects" (1707, 2nd edition c. 1725) and from the French of Claude Perrault, "A Treatise of the Five Orders of Columns in Architecture" (1708), and from the French of Dezallier d'Argenville, "The Theory and Practice of Gardening" (1712, 2nd edition 1728, 3rd edition 1743. Thus John James can be seen as one of the intermediaries who made Baroque Continental practice in architecture, decorative painting and formal garden planning available to English patrons and craftsmen.


Palazzo Muti Papazzurri

"This palazzo should not be confused with the Palazzo Muti e Santuario della Madonna dell' Archetto"
Palazzo Muti Papazzurri is a Baroque palazzo in Rome, Italy. It was built in 1660 by the architect Mattia de' Rossi, a pupil of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
It is thought it was constructed for the newly married Pompeo Muti Papazzurri and Maria Isabella Massimo. A print of 1699 shows a large townhouse built around an open cour d'honneur, the court being entered through a triumphal arch at the centre of a Baroque screen linking the two flanking wings. The screen still remains but has today had rooms built above it, thus completely altering the open appearance of the palazzo to a plain closed façade.
During the 18th century the palazzo formed the centre of a family complex of properties which were rented in their entirety to the Stuarts, pretenders to the British throne; thus for a time the palazzo was the home of a court in exile.
In 1909 the palazzo was heavily restored which has changed de' Rossi's architectural concept of the original design by removing the pediments to the windows and the statuary decorating the roofline.
The 17th and 18th century interior decoration of the palazzo has been preserved complete with their frescoed ceilings. The gallery, one of the principal reception rooms, has frescos depicting scenes from classical mythology attributed to Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi and Niccolò Berrettoni. Grimaldi was one of the most fashionable painters of his day having worked extensively for Cardinal Mazarin.
Today the palazzo houses the Pontifical Biblical Institute.


Church of the Holy Spirit, Wolfsburg

Church of the Holy Spirit () is a Lutheran church and parish center in Wolfsburg, Germany. The building is a notable project of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.
November of 1958, Alvar Aalto was personally commissioned to design the church by then-pastor Erich Bammel; Aalto began designing the building the same year. The design was completed and construction started in 1961. The church opened the following year.


Former Casino of Toledo

The building of the former Casino of Toledo (Spain), whose real name corresponds to the one of Center of Artists and Industrialists, belongs to the trend of Eclecticism that develops In Europe in the 19th century. The architect, Felipe Trigo, mixed elements of the Renaissance, in the configuration and planning of the facade, and Mudéjar, in the use of the brick.
The building, whose plant is a quadrilateral, has four floors and a tower; the latter form chamfered corner and houses the main entrance.
The materials used in the exterior are very different. Granite has been used in plinth, portal, corners and decorative elements; brick in holes, trim and turret, and masonry in the canvases.
Two construction zones can be differentiated, considering the time in which they were erected. The oldest dating from the 1920s and the most recent was built in the 1960s.
In 2015 a Saudi Sheikh buys part of the casino for an Islamic interpretation center.


Church of All Saints, Radwell

The Church of All Saints in Radwell in Hertfordshire is an Anglican parish church which comes under the Diocese of St Albans. It is a Grade II* listed building, having gained that status in 1968.
Design.
There was probably a church of some sort on the present site from at least 1215 as the first recorded Rector was Baldricus in 1218. This first building was probably mainly of wood but nothing of it survives in the present structure.
The present All Saints Church is a small parish church in the Perpendicular style probably dating to the mid-14th century but which was much restored in the 19th century. The church consists of a chancel 20 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in., a north vestry 14 ft. by 7 ft., the nave 35 ft. by 16 ft. 6 in., and the south porch 8 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft.
Constructed of flint and clunch rubble with the cement render removed in places, the chancel arch, window openings and the walls of the nave and chancel are probably mid-14th century in date, while the East window (a three-light window of about 1500 with decorative late 19th century glass given in 1885) and tower arch date to the early 16th century. The nave was restored in 1875, at which time the pews were added, while the chancel was restored in 1882, at which time the vestry and South porch were added. The short nave does not have an aisle and has only one window in each of the North and South walls. The steeply pitched roof has coped gable parapets, while above the West bay of the nave can be seen a bell-cot with a small broached copper spire over the timber bell chamber. A pointed arch separates the West bay as if the builders had intended to add a tower. The chancel arch dates to about 1340 and is similar in design to the tower arch but is more finely moulded, while the chancel's wagon roof is 19th century. The chancel arch shows traces of where at one time a rood screen was fixed across the archway, but this was presumably destroyed centuries ago.
The large and undecorated baptismal font is 14th or 15th century in date and has shields carved in the recesses on its shaft. The communion rails are 17th century with square tapering balusters.
The oak pulpit was given as a memorial to Frances Temple Proctor (died 1889), the wife of the Rector, the Rev Lovell Proctor, and their son Charles, who drowned in Bombay Harbour in 1906.
Monuments.
On the South wall of the chancel can be found an effigy tomb to Mary Plomer, who died in 1605 at the age of 30 after giving birth to her 11th child. A fine example of rustic Elizabethan sculpture, she is depicted as a large seated frontal figure holding a chrisom child (removed from the effigy for safekeeping) with one foot on a skull and an hour-glass in her hand. The baby is wrapped in a linen chrisom-cloth which at that time was worn for a month after christening in order to protect the sign of the cross made with chrism oil on the baby's head during baptism. This monument suggests that the baby died within a month of baptism. A smaller figure of Time is displayed to the left, with the whole tomb surrounded by decorated piers. On the plinth below is a panel depicting kneeling effigies of her 10 children, showing she had six sons, two of whom are slightly recessed showing they had predeceased her, and her four daughters, with obelisks and achievement above.
On the same wall is a monument to Ann Plomer (d.1625), with an inscribed slab framed by an arch and pediment with achievement above. On the North wall of the chancel is a monument with small kneeling figures of John Parker (d.1595), together with his wife and son in a surround similar to Mary Plomer's tomb but more modest. At the West end of the South chancel wall is a small leather plaque inscribed to William Pym (d.1729). On the South wall of the nave is a monument to William Plomer (d.1625) which displays Plomer kneeling at an altar with flanking obelisks and crests over an arch. Several memorials dating from the 18th century and later are on the nave walls. Several monumental brasses are set in the floor of the chancel, including in the North with one dedicated to Elizabeth Parker (d.1602), while in the South is a brass to William Wheteaker (d.1487), with his wife and son. In the North East corner of the nave is a brass to John Bele (d.1516) together with his two wives and children and the inscription "Pray for the soules of John Bele gentleman and Anne and Agnes hys wyfes, the whiche John decessed in the yere of our Lord God MVXVI". The stone-carved Royal Arms of George IV above the East face of the tower arch are dated 1825.
In the churchyard is a memorial to Private E.G. Stockham (died 1919) maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Bells.
The church has two bells, both quite small. The treble bell is very ancient and was probably cast in the 14th century. The tenor bell is not so old and was probably recast in the 17th century.


St Stephen Walbrook

St Stephen Walbrook is a church in the City of London, part of the Church of England's Diocese of London. The present domed building was erected to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren following the destruction of its medieval predecessor in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is located in Walbrook, next to the Mansion House, and near to Bank and Monument Underground stations.
Early history.
The original church of St Stephen stood on the west side of the street today known as Walbrook and on the east bank of the Walbrook, once an important fresh water stream for the Romans running south-westerly across the City of London from the City Wall near Moorfields to the Thames. The original church is thought to have been built directly over the remains of a Roman Mithraic Temple following a common Christian practice of hallowing former heathen sites of worship.
The church was moved to its present higher site on the other side of Walbrook Street, still on the east side of the River Walbrook (later diverted and concealed in a brick culvert running under Walbrook Street and Dowgate Hill on a straightened route to the Thames), in the 15th century. In 1429 Robert Chichele, acting as executor of the will of the former Lord Mayor, William Standon, had bought a piece of land close to the Stocks Market (on the site of the later Mansion House) and presented it to the parish. Several foundation stones were laid at a ceremony on 11 May 1429, and the church was consecrated ten years later, on 30 April 1439. At long and wide, it was considerably larger than the present building.
The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It contained a memorial to the composer John Dunstaple. The wording of the epitaph had been recorded in the early 17th century, and was reinstated in the church in 1904, some 450 years after his death. The nearby church of St Benet Sherehog, also destroyed in the Great Fire, was not rebuilt; instead its parish was united with that of St Stephen.
Wren's church.
The present building was constructed between 1672 and 1679 to a design by Sir Christopher Wren, at a cost of £7,692. It is rectangular in plan, with a dome and an attached north west tower. Entry to the church is up a flight of sixteen steps, enclosed in a porch attached to the west front. Wren also designed a porch for the north side of the church. This was never built, but there once was a north door, which was bricked up in 1685, as it let in the offensive smells from the slaughterhouses in the neighbouring Stocks Market.
The walls, tower, and internal columns are made of stone, but the dome is of timber and plaster with an external covering of copper
The high dome is based on Wren's original design for St Paul's, and is centred over a square of twelve columns of the Corinthian order. The circular base of the dome is not carried, in the conventional way, by pendentives formed above the arches of the square, but on a circle formed by eight arches that spring from eight of the twelve columns, cutting across each corner in the manner of the Byzantine squinch. This all contributes to create what many consider to be one of Wren's finest church interiors. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner lists it as one of the ten most important buildings in England.
The contemporary carved furnishings of the church, including the altarpiece and Royal Arms, the pulpit and font cover, are attributed to the carpenters Thomas Creecher and Stephen Colledge, and the carvers William Newman and Jonathan Maine.
In 1760 a new organ was provided by George England.
In 1776 the central window in the east wall was bricked up to allow for the installation of "Devout Men Taking Away the Body of St Stephen", a painting by Benjamin West, which the rector, Thomas Wilson, had commissioned for the church. The next year Wilson set up in the church a statue of Catharine Macaulay, (then still alive) whose political ideas he admired. It was removed after protests. The east window was unblocked, and the picture moved to the north wall, during extensive restorations in 1850.
Recent history.
The church suffered slight damage from bombing during the London Blitz of 1941 and was later restored. In 1954, the united parishes of St Mary Bothaw and St Swithin London Stone (merged in 1670) were themselves united with the parish of St Stephen.
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
In 1953 the Samaritans charity was founded by the rector of St Stephen's, Dr Chad Varah. The first Samaritans branch (known as Central London Branch) operated from a crypt beneath the church before moving to Marshall Street in Soho. In tribute to this, a telephone is preserved in a glass box in the church. The Samaritans began with this telephone, and today the voluntary organisation staffs a 24-hour telephone hot-line for people in emotional need.
In 1987, as part of a major programme of repairs and reordering, a massive white polished stone altar commissioned from the sculptor Henry Moore by churchwarden Peter Palumbo was installed in the centre of the church. Its unusual positioning required the authorisation of a rare judgement of the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved. In 1993 a circle of brightly coloured kneelers designed by Patrick Heron was added around the altar.
Benjamin West's "Devout men taking away the body of St Stephen", previously hung on the north interior wall, was put into storage following the reordering. This decision was controversial, as the initial removal of the painting was illegal. In 2013 the church was given permission to sell the painting to a foundation, despite opposition from the London Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches, and by the Church of England's Church Buildings Council. Prior to the painting's export, a temporary export bar was placed on it to give it a last chance to stay in the UK. The foundation has since loaned it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which has undertaken restoration work on the painting.
On 14 July 1994, the church was the venue for the wedding of Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones to Daniel Chatto.
At the time of his retirement in 2003, at the age of 92, Dr Chad Varah was the oldest serving incumbent in the Church of England.
Burials.
The nearest London Underground station is Bank.


Canada Life Building

The Canada Life Building is a historic office building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The fifteen-floor Beaux Arts building was built by Sproatt & Rolph and stands at , including its weather beacon.
It is located at University and Queen Street in the city's downtown core. Work on the new headquarters of the Canada Life Assurance Company began in 1929 and it opened in 1931. It was the fourth building to serve as the headquarters of Canada Life, Canada's oldest, and at the time largest insurance company. Previously it had been housed in offices at Bay and King Street.
The Beaux Arts structure was the first of a series of planned structures along University Avenue, but the Great Depression halted these plans. When it was completed it was one of the tallest buildings in Toronto. It remains one of the largest office buildings in Toronto with windows that can be opened by its occupants.
The Canada Life Campus has been expanded several times over the last few decades and now consists of five structures: 330 University Avenue, 190 Simcoe Street, 180 Simcoe Street, 180 Queen Street West and a 5-storey parking garage at 206 Simcoe Street. In addition, the Campbell House Museum was moved to the South-East corner of the Campus in 1972.
Weather beacon.
The building is perhaps best known for its weather beacon, whose colour codes provide summarized weather forecasts at a glance. The information is updated four times every day by Environment Canada's Weather Centre at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The forecast is for the next 4 hours. The top light shows:
The white lights along the support tower show:
Forecast Period:
The beacon was the first of its kind to appear in Canada and was built at a cost of $25,000 (). The top of the beacon tower stands above University Avenue and, when completed on August 9, 1951, made the structure the third-highest in Toronto, after the Canadian Bank of Commerce Building and the Royal York Hotel.
190 Simcoe Street.
190 Simcoe Street is a 9-floor addition to the Campus, built directly West of the original. It connects to the original building through two enclosed, elevated walkways It was completed in 1970.
180 Simcoe Street.
180 Simcoe Street is a 12-floor addition to the Campus, built directly South of 190 Simcoe Street. It connects to 190 Simcoe Street through a short walkway. It was completed in 1994.
Canada Life Tower - 180 Queen Street West.
Canada Life Tower is a 16-floor addition to the campus, built South-West of the original. It connects to the rest of the Campus through an underground loading dock area. It totals 16 floors and was designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna. It was completed in 2005.


William H. Wright Building

The William H. Wright Building was a six-storey office building located at 140 King Street West in Toronto, Ontario, at the corner of King and York streets. Designed by the firm Mathers and Haldenby and built between 1937 and 1938, it was one of Toronto's best examples of streamline moderne architecture. The building was home to "The Globe and Mail" newspaper and was named after the founder of that paper, William Henry Wright (1876-1951). In 1974 it was demolished to make way for the new Exchange Tower.
History.
The main door of the original building was retained and installed at the Globe and Mail's subsequent home on Front Street. Additional sculptural elements from the structure may be found at Guild Park and Gardens in Scarborough. The street address once occupied by the 1937 Globe and Mail Building is part of the First Canadian Place complex and is now occupied by the Exchange Tower. The plans for the William H. Wright Building are held at the Archives of Ontario as part of the "Mathers and Haldenby Fonds."


Rovaniemi city hall

Rovaniemi city hall is the main municipal administrative building of the city of Rovaniemi, Finland.
The building was designed by the renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, and although the design work started in the 1960s as part of the rebuilding of the Rovaniemi city centre, the city hall building was only completed in 1986 after Aalto's death.
The city hall is part of a complex of Aalto-designed public and administrative buildings, commonly referred to as 'Aalto Centre', together with the Lappia Hall arts and conference venue and the Rovaniemi library. The complex has been designated and protected by the Finnish Heritage Agency as a nationally important built cultural environment ("Valtakunnallisesti merkittävä rakennettu kulttuuriympäristö").
The building consists of a central block with several connected wings. The key rooms such as the Mayor's office, the City Council assembly hall and committee meeting rooms are positioned centrally by the main entrance. The exterior materials are similar to those on the other Aalto Centre buildings, creating a coherent and unified cluster.
Outside the main entrance to the building is a massive stone sculpture "Vuorten Synty" ('The Birth of Mountains') by the Finnish sculptor Kain Tapper, completed in 1988. The sculpture is long, and has a maximum height of . It symbolises the rebirth of Rovaniemi following the Lapland War.


Colonial architecture in Padang

Colonial architecture in Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia, includes the Masjid Muhammadan. Padang has long been a trade center and was a center of pepper trade and gold mine from the 16th to 17th century . Trade extended to India, Portugal, United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In 1663 the city came under the Dutch authority (Dutch East Indies). The city was under British authority twice, during the war between United Kingdom and the Netherlands (1781-1784) and during the Napoleonic Wars (1795-1815). Afterwards the city was transferred back to the Netherlands. It came under control of Imperial Japan during World War II, and after the war control was eventually transferred to the independent Republic of Indonesia. Padang has also been a center for coffee, salt and textile trade.


CCC Shelter

The CCC Shelter, also known as the Combination Shelter, is a historic park shelter located at Pokagon State Park in Jamestown Township, Steuben County, Indiana. It is a stone and wood building and was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935/36. Although a low, wide roof gives some protection against rain and snow, the shelter is open on its longer west and east sides. The north and south ends of the structure feature tall fireplaces built with large stones found within the park, individually hewn by the CCC workers.
The shelter is now used for various programs such as the annual Autumn Storytelling or for renting cross-country skis in the winter.
Many other buildings within Pokagon State Park were constructed by the CCC during their stay from 1934 to 1942, including the Gate House (1936), (1937), and the Saddle Barn (1938), and the first incarnations of the tobaggon run.
The CCC Shelter was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.


Wakehurst Place

Wakehurst, previously known as Wakehurst Place, is a house and botanic gardens in West Sussex, England, owned by the National Trust but used and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It is near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald (grid reference TQ340315), and comprises a late 16th-century mansion, a mainly 20th-century garden and, in a modern building, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank. Visitors are able to see the gardens, the Mansion, and also visit the seed bank. The garden today covers some and includes walled and water gardens, woodland and wetland conservation areas.
RBG Kew has leased the land from the National Trust since 1965 and much has been achieved in this time, from the Millennium Seed Bank project and the creation of the Loder Valley and Francis Rose Nature Reserves to the introduction of the visitor centre, the Seed café and Stables restaurant along with the development of the gardens.
Wakehurst is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and its gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
The stables are listed Grade II* and the South Lodge and gateway is listed Grade II.
History.
The mansion was built by Sir Edward Culpeper in 1590. It originally formed a complete courtyard prior to being altered various times, and currently has an E-shaped plan. Wakehurst was bought in 1694 by Dennis Lyddell, comptroller of the Royal Navy treasurer's accounts and briefly MP for Harwich. His son Richard Liddell, Chief Secretary for Ireland and MP for Bossiney, was obliged by financial pressure to pass the estate to his younger brother Charles.
The house was illustrated in Joseph Nash's "The Mansions of England in the Olden Time" (1839–49).
The gardens were largely created by Gerald Loder (later Lord Wakehurst) who purchased the estate in 1903 and spent 33 years developing the gardens. He was succeeded by Sir Henry Price, under whose care the Loder plantings matured. Sir Henry left Wakehurst to the nation in 1963 and the Royal Botanic Gardens took up a lease from the National Trust in 1965.
In 1887, American architect Dudley Newton completed a replica of Wakehurst in Newport, Rhode Island, for sportsman and politician James J. Van Alen from plans designed by Charles Eamer Kempe. Salve Regina University purchased the mansion from the Van Alen family in 1972.
National Collections.
Wakehurst is home to the National Collections of "Betula" (birches), "Hypericum", "Nothofagus" (Southern Hemisphere beeches) and "Skimmia". The Great Storm of 1987 decimated Loder's plantings, toppling 20,000 trees. Since then, Kew has redesigned the gardens to create a walk through the temperate woodlands of the world.
Millennium Seed Bank.
The Wellcome Trust Millennium Building, which houses an international seed bank known as the Millennium Seed Bank (run by Kew, not the National Trust), was opened in 2000. The aim of the Millennium Seed Bank is to collect seeds from all of the UK's native flora and conserve seeds from 25% of the world's flora by 2020, in the hope that this will save species from extinction in the wild.
Nearby, also cared for by Kew, are the Loder Valley Nature Reserve of woodland, meadowland and wetland habitats, and the Francis Rose Reserve, the first devoted to cryptogams (mosses, lichens and ferns).
Christmas tree.
Wakehurst is home to the largest growing Christmas tree in England, a giant redwood. The tree stands tall and is lit with around 1,800 lights from Advent until Twelfth Night. The lightbulbs on the tree were changed in 2006 to energy-saving lightbulbs, so the tree is not as bright as before but uses less energy.
Popular culture.
Much of Kenneth Branagh's 2006 film "As You Like It", adapted from Shakespeare's play, was filmed on location at Wakehurst.


Pohjola Insurance building

The Pohjola Insurance building is the former headquarters of the Pohjola Insurance Company at Aleksanterinkatu 44 and Mikonkatu 3 in central Helsinki. Primarily designed by Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen and constructed in 1899–1901, it is a prominent example of Finnish national romantic architecture. It was acquired in 1972 by Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, now succeeded by Nordea.
Background.
The Pohjola Insurance Company (precursor of OP Financial Group) was founded in 1891 and specialised in fire insurance. They held a competition for the design of their headquarters, which would also house another Fennomane insurance company, Kullervo, with the specification that the building must be of fire-resistant stone. Based on the submissions, they commissioned Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen to design the exteriors and major interior spaces, but Ines and Ernst A. Törnvall were responsible for the plans. It was the first commercial building by Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen.
Building.
The building is national romantic in style, with façades of rough-hewn soapstone, red granite and serpentine decorated with sculptures of vegetation, squirrels, and figures from "Kalevala", and on the street corner a tower with a pinecone-shaped roof. When it was built, a reviewer dwelt on its "Finnish-naturalistic" style, but in form the exterior may have been influenced by contemporary American buildings: Henry Hobson Richardson's Cheney Building similarly uses a corner tower, and the use of windows resembles that in Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building. Another Finnish architect, , criticised the romantic elements as embodying "primitive, partially crude and untamed force". Other reviewers praised it for its comparability to buildings in other countries and to their use of ornament.
Lindgren, the member of the firm who appears to have been most attached to national romanticism, greatly influenced the ornamentation of this building. The main entrance, designed by Hilda Flodin, a pupil of Rodin, is flanked by the names of the two insurance companies, both from "Kalevala", and by devils, monsters or trolls; bears, the symbol of the insurance company, top the pilasters and also appear in the interior decoration. Because the mouths of the Pohjola characters are slightly open, passers-by sometimes leave cigarette butts in their mouths as a prank.
The door itself is deeply recessed under an arch, and the vestibule continues the allusion to medieval architecture, with vaulting and with carved animals topping pillars. The rest of the interior also used rustic and folklore motifs, with doorways by Erik O. W. Ehrström, iron wheel chandeliers by G. W. Sohlberg, and a circular main stairway with a cast-iron banister with pine-tree motifs; the newel posts and the benches on the landings were carved wood depicting fern leaves and, again, trolls, and the stained glass featured ferns and owls. The service hall on the first floor was given red pine panelling and a central pillar styled to resemble a tree trunk. However, it has a steel core; behind the façades the building is brick with structural steel and from the start had Swedish-made lifts as well as an electrical generator. The structural engineer was Elia Heikel, who was also working at the time on the Lundqvist Building opposite, which is seen as the first modern commercial building in Finland.
Uses.
The building originally had flats on the upper three floors. It was acquired in 1972 by Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, a bank which has subsequently been merged to form Nordea, but until 1987 Pohjola Insurance still had some customer service operations in the building. The customer service hall has since then been used as banqueting space. The tobacconist's Havanna-Aitta has been in the ground-floor commercial space for decades.


Grimsthorpe Castle

Grimsthorpe Castle is a country house in Lincolnshire, England north-west of Bourne on the A151. It lies within a 3,000 acre (12 km²) park of rolling pastures, lakes, and woodland landscaped by Capability Brown. While Grimsthorpe is not a castle in the strict sense of the word, its character is massive and martial – the towers and outlying pavilions recalling the bastions of a great fortress in classical dress. Grimsthorpe has been the home of the de Eresby family since 1516. The present owner is Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, granddaughter of Nancy Astor, who died at Grimsthorpe in 1964.
Origins.
The building was originally a small castle on the crest of a ridge on the road inland from the Lincolnshire fen edge towards the Great North Road. It is said to have been begun by Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln in the early 13th century. However, he was the first and last in this creation of the Earldom of Lincoln and he died in 1156. Gilbert's heyday was the peak time of castle building in England, during the Anarchy. It is quite possible that the castle was built around 1140. However, the tower at the south-east corner of the present building is usually said to have been part of the original castle and it is known as King John's Tower. The naming of King John's tower seems to have led to a misattribution of the castle's origin to his time.
Gilbert de Gant spent much of his life in the power of the Earl of Chester and Grimsthorpe is likely to have fallen into his hands in 1156 when Gilbert died, though the title 'Earl of Lincoln' reverted to the crown. In the next creation of the earldom, in 1217, it was Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester (1172–1232) who was ennobled with it. It seems that the title, if not the property was in the hands of King John during his reign; hence perhaps, the name of the tower.
During the last years of the Plantagenet kings of England, it was in the hands of Lord Lovell. He was a prominent supporter of Richard III. After Henry VII came to the throne, Lovell supported a rebellion to restore the earlier royal dynasty. The rebellion failed and Lovell's property was taken confiscated and given to a supporter of the Tudor Dynasty.
The Tudor period.
This grant by Henry VIII, Henry Tudor's son, to the 11th Baron Willoughby de Eresby was made in 1516, together with the hand in marriage of Maria de Salinas, a Spanish lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon. Their daughter Katherine inherited the title and estate on the death of her father in 1526, when she was aged just seven. In 1533, she became the fourth wife of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, a close ally of Henry VIII. In 1539, Henry VIII granted Charles Suffolk the lands of the nearby suppressed Vaudey Abbey, founded in 1147, and he used its stone as building material for his new house. Suffolk set about extending and rebuilding his wife's house, and in only eighteen months it was ready for a visit in 1541 by King Henry, on his way to York to meet his nephew, James V of Scotland. In 1551, James's widow Mary of Guise also stayed at Grimsthorpe. The house stands on glacial till and it seems that the additions were hastily constructed. Substantial repairs were required later owing to the poor state of the foundations, but much of this Tudor house can still be seen today.
During Mary's reign the castle's owners, Katherine Willoughby and her second husband, Richard Bertie, were forced to leave it owing to their Anglican views. On Elizabeth's succeeding to the throne, they returned with their daughter, Susan, and their new son Peregrine, later the 13th Baron. He became a soldier and spent much of his time away from Grimsthorpe.
The Vanbrugh building.
By 1707, when Grimsthorpe was illustrated in "Britannia Illustrata", the 15th Baron Willoughby de Eresby and 3rd Earl Lindsey had rebuilt the north front of Grimsthorpe in the classical style. However, in 1715, Robert Bertie, the 16th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, employed Sir John Vanbrugh to design a baroque front to the house to celebrate his ennoblement as the first Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. It is Vanbrugh's last masterpiece. He also prepared designs for the reconstruction of the other three ranges of the house, but they were not carried out. His proposed elevation for the south front was in the Palladian style, which was just coming into fashion, and is quite different from all of his built designs.
Inside, the Vanbrugh hall is monumental with stone arcades all around at two levels. Arcaded screens at each end of the hall separate the hall from staircases, much like those at Audley End House and Castle Howard. The staircase is behind the hall screen and leads to the staterooms on the first floor. The State Dining Room occupies Vanbrugh's north-east tower, with its painted ceiling lit by a Venetian window. It contains the throne used by George IV at his Coronation Banquet, and a Regency giltwood throne and footstool used by Queen Victoria in the old House of Lords. There is also a walnut and parcel gilt chair and footstool made for the use of George III at Westminster. The King James and State Drawing Rooms have been redecorated over the centuries, and contain portraits by Reynolds and Van Dyck, European furniture, and yellow Soho Tapestries woven by Joshua Morris around 1730. The South Corridor contains thrones used by Prince Albert and Edward VII, as well as the desk on which Queen Victoria signed her coronation oath. A series of rooms follows in the Tudor east range, with recessed oriel windows and ornate ceilings. The Chinese drawing room has a splendidly rich ceiling and an 18th-century fan-vaulted oriel window. The walls are hung with Chinese wallpaper depicting birds amidst bamboo. The chapel is magnificent with superb 17th-century plasterwork.
The park.
The park was originally the southern edge of the great Lincolnshire forest, and its medieval deer park and Tudor oak park are crossed by fine avenues of trees. Oak trees which will have been among those recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 were growing in the park when drawings of the park were made in the early 18th century. Some of these ancient trees were reportedly still alive in the 20th century. The present Grimsthorpe Castle park was designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown (1771) and implemented by his patron, the 3rd Duke of Ancaster. The garden contains a knot garden, hedged rose gardens, a terrace with herbaceous and shrub borders, and a summerhouse designed by Vanbrugh. The formal flower and topiary garden leads imperceptibly into the woodland garden, and provides a fine setting for the ornamental vegetable garden and orchard, created in the 1960s by the Countess of Ancaster and Peter Coates. Intricate parterres marked with box hedges lie close to the Castle, and a dramatic herbaceous border frames views across the lake.
Nineteenth century.
The 1st Earl of Ancaster was very interested in technology, and attempted to improve the productivity of the estate in a number of ways. He organised an early demonstration of steam ploughing, built a private railway and used portable steam engines in the sawmill and for pumping.
Twentieth century.
During the First World War Grimsthorpe Park was used by the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force as an emergency landing ground. During the Second World War the central part of the park, near the Vaudey Abbey site, was used as a bombing range. In 1944 the castle housed a company of the Parachute Regiment while it was recovering from operations in Italy and training for what became Operation Market Garden. Their flight for Arnhem began from RAF Folkingham.
Grimsthorpe and Drummond castles are now owned and managed by a trust.
Art collection.
A life-sized Zurbarán portrait of Benjamin hangs at Grimsthorpe; it is the sole painting that has been separated from the series Jacob and his twelve sons by Francisco de Zurbarán that hangs at Auckland Castle in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, where there is a copy of it.


St Albans Cathedral

St Albans Cathedral, officially the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban but often referred to locally as "the Abbey", is a Church of England cathedral in St Albans, England. Much of its architecture dates from Norman times. It ceased to be an abbey following its dissolution in the 16th century and became a cathedral in 1877. Although legally a cathedral church, it differs in certain particulars from most other cathedrals in England, being also used as a parish church, of which the dean is rector with the same powers, responsibilities and duties as that of any other parish. At 85 metres long, it has the longest nave of any cathedral in England.
Probably founded in the 8th century, the present building is Norman or Romanesque architecture of the 11th century, with Gothic and 19th-century additions.
Britain's first Christian martyr.
According to Bede, whose account of the saint's life is the most elaborate, Alban lived in Verulamium, some time during the 3rd or 4th centuries. At that time Christians began to suffer "cruel persecution." The legend proceeds with Alban meeting a Christian priest (known as Amphibalus) fleeing from "persecutors," and sheltering him in his house for a number of days. Alban was so impressed with the priest's faith and piety that he soon converted to Christianity. Eventually Roman soldiers came to seize the priest, but Alban put on his cloak and presented himself to the soldiers in place of his guest. Alban was brought before a judge and was sentenced to beheading. As he was led to execution, he came to a fast flowing river, commonly believed to be the River Ver, crossed it and went about 500 paces to a gently sloping hill overlooking a beautiful plain When he reached the summit he began to thirst and prayed that God would give him drink, whereupon water sprang up at his feet. It was at this place that his head was struck off. Immediately after one of the executioners delivered the fatal stroke, his eyes fell out and dropped to the ground alongside Alban's head. Later versions of the tale say that Alban's head rolled downhill and that a well gushed up where it stopped. St Albans Cathedral stands near the supposed site of Alban's martyrdom, and references to the spontaneous well are extant in local place names. The nearby river was called Halywell (Middle English for 'Holy Well') in the medieval era, and the road up to Holmhurst Hill on which the Abbey now stands is now called Holywell Hill but has been called Halliwell Street and other variations at least since the 13th century. The remains of a well structure have been found at the bottom of Holywell Hill. However, this well is thought to date from no earlier than the 19th century.
The date of Alban's execution has never been firmly established. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" lists the year 283, but Bede places it in 305. Original sources and modern historians such as William Hugh Clifford Frend and Charles Thomas indicate the period of 251–259 (under the persecutors Decius or Valerian) as more likely.
The tomb of St Amphibalus is in the cathedral.
History of the abbey and cathedral.
A "memoria" over the execution point holding the remains of Alban existed at the site from the mid-4th century (possibly earlier); Bede mentions a church and Gildas a shrine. Bishop Germanus of Auxerre visited in 429. The style of this structure is unknown; the 13th-century chronicler Matthew Paris (see below) claimed that the Saxons destroyed the building in 586.
Saxon buildings.
Offa II of Mercia, is said to have founded a double monastery at St Albans in 793. It followed the Benedictine rule. The Abbey was built on Holmhurst Hill — now Holywell Hill — across the River Ver from the ruins of Verulamium. Again there is no information to the form of the first abbey. The Abbey was probably sacked by the Danes around 890 and, despite Paris's claims, the office of abbot remained empty from around 920 until the 970s when the efforts of Dunstan reached the town.
There was an intention to rebuild the Abbey in 1005 when Abbot Ealdred was licensed to remove building material from Verulamium. With the town resting on clay and chalk the only tough stone is flint. This was used with a lime mortar and then either plastered over or left bare. With the great quantities of brick, tile and other stone in Verulamium, the Roman site became a prime source of building material for the Abbey and other projects in the area. Sections demanding worked stone used Lincolnshire limestone (Barnack stone) from Verulamium; later worked stones include Totternhoe freestone from Bedfordshire, Purbeck marble, and different limestones (Ancaster, Chilmark, Clipsham, etc.).
Renewed Viking raids from 1016 stalled the Saxon efforts and very little from the Saxon abbey was incorporated in the later forms.
Norman abbey.
Much of the current layout and proportions of the structure date from the first Norman abbot, Paul of Caen (1077–1093). The 14th abbot, he was appointed by his uncle, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc.
Building work started in the year of Abbot Paul's arrival. The design and construction was overseen by the Norman Robert the Mason. The plan has very limited Anglo-Saxon elements and is clearly influenced by the French work at Cluny, Bernay and Caen, and shares a similar floor plan to Saint-Étienne in Caen and Lanfranc's Canterbury — although the poorer quality building material was a new challenge for Robert and he clearly borrowed some Roman techniques, which were learned while gathering material in the ruins of Verulamium.
To take maximum use of the hilltop the Abbey was oriented to the south-east. The cruciform abbey was the largest built in England at that time, it had a chancel of four bays, a transept containing seven apses, and a nave of ten bays — fifteen bays long overall. Robert gave particular attention to solid foundations, running a continuous wall of layered bricks, flints and mortar below and pushing the foundations down to twelve feet to hit bedrock. Below the crossing tower special large stones were used.
The tower was a particular triumph — it is the only 11th-century great crossing tower still standing in England. Robert began with special thick supporting walls and four massive brick piers. The four-level tower tapers at each stage with clasping buttresses on the three lower levels and circular buttresses on the fourth stage. The entire structure masses 5,000 tons and is 144 feet high. The tower was probably topped with a Norman pyramidal roof; the current roof is flat. The original ringing chamber had five bells — two paid for by the Abbot, two by a wealthy townsman, and one donated by the rector of Hoddesdon. None of these bells has survived.
There was a widespread belief that the Abbey had two additional, smaller towers at the west end. No remains have been found.
The monastic abbey was completed in 1089 but not consecrated until Holy Innocents' Day (28 December), 1115, by the Archbishop of Rouen. King Henry I attended as did many bishops and nobles.
A nunnery (Sopwell Priory) was founded nearby in 1140.
Internally the Abbey church was bare of sculpture, almost stark. The plaster walls were coloured and patterned in parts, with extensive tapestries adding colour. Sculptural decoration was added, mainly ornaments, as it became more fashionable in the 12th century — especially after the Gothic style arrived in England around 1170.
In the current structure the original Norman arches survive principally under the central tower and on the north side of the nave. The arches in the rest of the building are Gothic, following medieval rebuilding and extensions, and Victorian era restoration.
The Abbey was extended in the 1190s by Abbot John de Cella (also known as John of Wallingford) (1195–1214); as the number of monks grew from fifty to over a hundred, the Abbey church was extended westwards with three bays added to the nave. The severe Norman west front was also rebuilt by Hugh de Goldclif — although how is uncertain; it was very costly but its 'rapid' weathering and later alterations have erased all but fragments. A more prominent shrine and altar to Saint Amphibalus were also added. The work was very slow under de Cella and was not completed until the time of Abbot William de Trumpington (1214–35). The low Norman tower roof was demolished and a new, much higher, broached spire was raised, sheathed in lead.
The St Albans Psalter (ca. 1130–45) is the best known of a number of important Romanesque illuminated manuscripts produced in the Abbey scriptorium. Later, Matthew Paris, a monk at St Albans from 1217 until his death in 1259, was important both as a chronicler and an artist. Eighteen of his manuscripts survive and are a rich source of contemporary information for historians.
Nicholas Breakspear was born near St Albans and applied to be admitted to the Abbey as a novice, but he was turned down. He eventually managed to be accepted into an abbey in France. In 1154 he was elected Pope Adrian IV, the only English Pope there has ever been. The head of the Abbey was confirmed as the premier abbot in England also in 1154.
The Abbey had a number of daughter houses, ranging from Tynemouth Priory in the north to Binham Priory near the Norfolk coast.
13th to 15th centuries.
An earthquake shook the Abbey in 1250 and damaged the eastern end of the church. In 1257 the dangerously cracked sections were knocked down — three apses and two bays. The thick Presbytery wall supporting the tower was left. The rebuilding and updating was completed during the rule of Abbot Roger de Norton (1263–90).
On 10 October 1323 two piers on the south side of the nave collapsed dragging down much of the roof and wrecking five bays. Mason Henry Wy undertook the rebuilding, matching the Early English style of the rest of the bays but adding distinctly 14th-century detailing and ornaments. The shrine to St Amphibalus had also been damaged and it was remade.
Richard of Wallingford, abbot from 1297 to 1336 and a mathematician and astronomer, designed a celebrated astronomical clock, which was completed by William of Walsham after his death, but apparently destroyed during the Reformation.
A new gateway, now called the Abbey Gateway, was built to the Abbey grounds in 1365, which was the only part of the monastery buildings (besides the church) to survive the dissolution, later being used as a prison and now (since 1871) part of St Albans School. The other monastic buildings were located to the south of the gateway and church.
In the 15th century a large west window of nine main lights and a deep traced head was commissioned by John of Wheathampstead. The spire was reduced to a 'Hertfordshire spike', the roof pitch greatly reduced and battlements liberally added. Further new windows, at £50 each, were put in the transepts by Abbot Wallingford (also known as William of Wallingford), who also had a new high altar screen made.
Dissolution and after.
After the death of Abbot Ramryge in 1521 the Abbey fell into debt and slow decay under three weak abbots. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and its surrender on 5 December 1539 the income was £2,100 annually. The abbot and remaining forty monks were pensioned off and then the buildings were looted. All gold, silver and gilt objects were carted away with all other valuables; stonework was broken and defaced and graves opened to burn the contents.
The Abbey became part of the diocese of Lincoln in 1542 and was moved to the diocese of London in 1550. The buildings suffered — neglect, second-rate repairs, even active damage. Richard Lee purchased all the buildings, except the church and chapel and some other Crown premises, in 1550. Lee then began the systematic demolition for building material to improve Lee Hall at Sopwell. In 1551, with the stone removed, Lee returned the land to the abbot. The area was named Abbey Ruins for the next 200 years or so.
In 1553 the Lady chapel was used as a school, the Great Gatehouse as a town jail, some other buildings passed to the Crown, and the Abbey Church was sold to the town for £400 in 1553 by King Edward VI to be the church of the parish.
The cost of upkeep fell upon the town, although in 1596 and at irregular intervals later the Archdeacon was allowed to collect money for repairs by Brief in the diocese. After James I visited in 1612 he authorised another Brief, which collected around £2,000 — most of which went on roof repairs. The English Civil War slashed the monies spent on repairs, while the Abbey Church was used to hold prisoners of war and suffered from their vandalism, as well as that of their guards. Most of the metal objects that had survived the Dissolution were also removed and other ornamental parts were damaged in Puritan sternness. Another round of fund-raising in 1681–84 was again spent on the roof, repairing the Presbytery vault. A royal grant from William III and Mary II in 1689 went on general maintenance, 'repairs' to conceal some of the then considered unfashionable Gothic features, and on new internal fittings. There was a second royal grant from William in 1698.
By the end of the 17th century the dilapidation was sufficient for a number of writers to comment upon it.
In 1703, from 26 November to 1 December, the Great Storm raged across southern England; the Abbey lost the south transept window which was replaced in wood at a cost of £40. The window was clear glass with five lights and three transoms in an early Gothic Revival style by John Hawgood. Other windows, although not damaged in the storm, were a constant drain on the Abbey budget in the 18th century.
A brief written in 1723–24, seeking £5,775, notes a great crack in the south wall, that the north wall was eighteen inches from vertical, and that the roof timbers were decayed to the point of danger. The money raised was spent on the nave roof over ten bays.
Another brief was not issued until 1764. Again the roof was rotting, as was the south transept window, walls were cracked or shattered in part and the south wall had subsided and now leant outwards. Despite a target of £2,500 a mere £600 was raised.
In the 1770s the Abbey came close to demolition; the expense of repairs meant a scheme to destroy the Abbey and erect a smaller church almost succeeded.
A storm in 1797 caused some subsidence, cracking open graves, scattering pavement tiles, flooding the church interior and leaving a few more arches off-vertical.
19th century.
This century was marked with a number of repair schemes. The Abbey received some money from the 1818 "Million Act", and in 1820, £450 was raised to buy an organ — a second-hand example made in 1670.
The major efforts to revive the Abbey Church came under four men — L. N. Cottingham, H. J. B. Nicholson (Rector), and, especially, George Gilbert Scott and Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe.
In February 1832 a portion of the clerestory wall fell through the roof of the south aisle, leaving a hole almost thirty feet long. With the need for serious repair work evident, the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham was called in to survey the building. His "Survey" was presented in 1832 and was worrying reading: everywhere mortar was in a wretched condition and wooden beams were rotting and twisting. Cottingham recommended new beams throughout the roof and a new steeper pitch, removal of the spire and new timbers in the tower, new paving, ironwork to hold the west transept wall up, a new stone south transept window, new buttresses, a new drainage system for the roof, new ironwork on almost all the windows, and on and on. He estimated a cost of £14,000. A public subscription of £4,000 was raised, of which £1,700 vanished in expenses. With the limited funds the clerestory wall was rebuilt, the nave roof re-leaded, the tower spike removed, some forty blocked windows reopened and glazed, and the south window remade in stone.
Henry Nicholson, rector from 1835 to 1866, was also active in repairing the Abbey Church — as far as he could, and in uncovering lost or neglected Gothic features.
In 1856 repair efforts began again; £4,000 was raised and slow moves started to gain the Abbey the status of cathedral. George Gilbert Scott was appointed the project architect and oversaw a number of works from 1860 until his death in 1878.
Scott began by having the medieval floor restored, necessitating the removal of tons of earth, and fixing the north aisle roof. From 1872 to 1877 the restored floors were re-tiled in matching stone and copies of old tile designs. A further 2,000 tons of earth were shifted in 1863 during work on the foundation and a new drainage system. In 1870 the tower piers were found to be badly weakened with many cracks and cavities. Huge timbers were inserted and the arches filled with brick as an emergency measure. Repair work took until May 1871 and cost over £2,000. The south wall of the nave was now far from straight; Scott reinforced the north wall and put in scaffolding to take the weight of the roof off the wall, then had it jacked straight in under three hours. The wall was then buttressed with five huge new masses and set right. Scott was lauded as "saviour of the Abbey." From 1870 to 1875 around £20,000 was spent on the Abbey.
In 1845 St Albans was transferred from the Diocese of Lincoln to the Diocese of Rochester. Then, in 1875, the Bishopric of St Albans Act was passed and on 30 April 1877 the See of St Albans was created, which comprises about 300 churches in the counties of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Thomas Legh Claughton, then Bishop of Rochester, elected to take the northern division of his old diocese and on 12 June 1877 was enthroned first Bishop of St Albans, a position he held until 1890. He is buried in the churchyard on the north side of the nave.
George Gilbert Scott was working on the nave roof, vaulting and west bay when he died on 27 March 1878. His plans were partially completed by his son, John Oldrid Scott, but the remaining work fell into the hands of Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, whose efforts have attracted much controversy — Nikolaus Pevsner calling him a "pompous, righteous bully." However, he donated much of the immense sum of £130,000 the work cost.
Whereas Scott's work had clearly been in sympathy with the existing building, Grimthorpe's plans reflected the Victorian ideal. Indeed, he spent considerable time dismissing and criticising the work of Scott and the efforts of his son.
Grimthorpe first reinstated the original pitch of the roof, although the battlements added for the lower roof were retained. Completed in 1879, the roof was leaded, following on Scott's desires.
His second major project was the most controversial. The west front, with the great Wheathampstead window, was cracked and leaning, and Grimthorpe, never more than an amateur architect, designed the new front himself — attacked as dense, misproportioned and unsympathetic: "His impoverishment as a designer ... [is] evident"; "this man, so practical and ingenious, was utterly devoid of taste ... his great qualities were marred by arrogance ... and a lack of historic sense". Counter proposals were deliberately substituted by Grimthorpe for poorly drawn versions and Grimthorpe's design was accepted. During building it was considerably reworked in order to fit the actual frontage and is not improved by the poor quality sculpture. Work began in 1880 and was completed in April 1883, having cost £20,000.
Grimthorpe was noted for his aversion to the Perpendicular — to the extent that he would have sections he disliked demolished as "too rotten" rather than remade. In his reconstruction, especially of windows, he commonly mixed architectural styles carelessly (see the south aisle, the south choir screen and vaulting). He spent £50,000 remaking the nave. Elsewhere he completely rebuilt the south wall cloisters, with new heavy buttresses, and removed the arcading of the east cloisters during rebuilding the south transept walls. In the south transept he completely remade the south face, completed in 1885, including the huge lancet window group — his proudest achievement — and the flanking turrets; a weighty new tiled roof was also made. In the north transept Grimthorpe had the Perpendicular window demolished and his design inserted — a rose window of circles, cusped circles and lozenges arrayed in five rings around the central light, sixty-four lights in total, each circle with a different glazing pattern.
Grimthorpe continued through the Presbytery in his own style, adapting the antechapel for Consistory Courts, and into the Lady Chapel. After a pointed lawsuit with Henry Hucks Gibbs, 1st Baron Aldenham, over who should direct the restoration, Grimthorpe had the vault remade and reproportioned in stone, made the floor in black and white marble (1893), and had new Victorian arcading and sculpture put below the canopy work. Externally the buttresses were expanded to support the new roof, and the walls were refaced.
As early as 1897, Grimthorpe was having to return to previously renovated sections to make repairs. His use of over-strong cement led to cracking, while his fondness for ironwork in windows led to corrosion and damage to the surrounding stone.
Grimthorpe died in 1905 and was interred in the churchyard. He left a bequest for continuing work on the buildings.
During this century the name "St Albans Abbey" was given to one of the town's two railway stations.
20th century.
John Oldrid Scott (died 1913) (George Gilbert Scott's son), despite frequent clashes with Grimthorpe, had continued working within the cathedral. Scott was a steadfast supporter of the Gothic revival and designed the tomb of the first bishop; he had a new bishop's throne built (1903), together with commemorative stalls for Festing (a bishop) and two archdeacons, and new choir stalls. He also repositioned and rebuilt the organ (1907). Further work was interrupted by the war.
A number of memorials to the war were added to the cathedral, notably the painting "The Passing of Eleanor" by Frank Salisbury (stolen 1973) and the reglazing of the main west window, dedicated in 1925.
Following the Enabling Act of 1919, control of the buildings passed to a Parochial Church Council (replaced by the Cathedral Council in 1968), who appointed the woodwork specialist John Rogers as Architect and Surveyor of the Fabric. He uncovered extensive death watch beetle damage in the presbytery vault and oversaw the repair (1930–31). He had four tons of rubbish removed from the crossing tower and the main timbers reinforced (1931–32), and invested in the extensive use of insecticide throughout the wood structures. In 1934, the eight bells were overhauled and four new bells added to be used in the celebration of George V's silver jubilee.
Cecil Brown was architect and surveyor from 1939 to 1962. At first he merely oversaw the lowering of the bells for the war and established a fire watch, with the pump in the slype. After the war, in the 1950s, the organ was removed, rebuilt and reinstalled and new pews added. His major work was on the crossing tower. Grimthorpe's cement was found to be damaging the Roman bricks: every brick in the tower was replaced as needed and reset in proper mortar by one man, Walter Barrett. The tower ceiling was renovated as were the nave murals. Brown established the Muniments Room to gather and hold all the church documents.
In 1972, to encourage a closer link between celebrant and congregation in the nave, the massive nine-ton pulpit along with the choir stalls and permanent pews was dismantled and removed. The altar space was enlarged and improved. New 'lighter' wood (limed oak) choir stalls were put in, and chairs replaced the pews. A new wooden pulpit was acquired from a Norfolk church and installed in 1974. External floodlighting was added in 1975.
A major survey in 1974 revealed new leaks, decay and other deterioration, and a ten-year restoration plan was agreed. Again the roofing required much work. The nave and clerestory roofs were repaired in four stages with new leading. The nave project was completed in 1984 at a total cost of £1.75 million. The clerestory windows were repaired with the corroded iron replaced with delta bronze and other Grimthorpe work on the clerestory was replaced. Seventy-two new heads for the corbel table were made. Grimthorpe's west front was cracking, again due to the use originally of too strong a mortar, and was repaired.
A new visitors' centre was proposed in 1970. Planning permission was sought in 1973; there was a public inquiry and approval was granted in 1977. Constructed to the south side of the cathedral, close to the site of the original chapter house of the Abbey, the new 'Chapter House' cost around £1 million and was officially opened on 8 June 1982 by Queen Elizabeth. The main building material was 500,000 replica Roman bricks.
Other late 20th-century works include the restoration of Alban's shrine, with a new embroidered canopy, and the stained glass designed by Alan Younger for Grimthorpe's north transept rose window, unveiled in 1989 by Diana, Princess of Wales. In 2015 seven new painted stone statues by Rory Young were installed in the medieval niches in the nave screen. This was a rare occurrence as the last painted figures placed in a church screen were put there before the Reformation and the English civil war.
21st century.
The shrine of St Amphibalus was restored between 2019 and 2021, funded by a grant and the contribution of over a thousand donors. Due to be unveiled in 2020, work was delayed due to the Covid pandemic, and a new figure wearing a face mask was added to commemorate this.
Modern times.
The bishop of St Albans is Alan Smith, installed in September 2009. Jonathan Smith is Archdeacon of St Albans, installed in October 2008. On 2 July 2004, Jeffrey John became the ninth dean of the cathedral.
Robert Runcie, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was Bishop of St Albans from 1970 to 1980 and returned to live in the city after his retirement; he is commemorated by a gargoyle on the cathedral as well as being buried in the graveyard. Colin Slee, former dean of Southwark Cathedral, was sub-dean at St Albans under Runcie and the then dean, Peter Moore. The bishop's residence, Abbey Gate House, is in Abbey Mill Lane, St Albans, as is the house of the bishop of Hertford. Eric James, Chaplain Extraordinary to the Queen, was canon at St Albans for many years.
Dean and chapter.
As of 1 January 2021:
Minor Canons
Music and choirs.
Organists.
The master of the music and the assistant master of the music share the responsibility of directing the St Albans Cathedral Choir and the St Albans Cathedral Girls' Choir respectively.
The earliest known name of an organist at St Albans is Adam from the early 13th century. Robert Fayrfax, the prominent English Renaissance composer, is recorded as being organist from 1498 to 1502, and was buried there following his death some 20 years later. Since 1820 the post of organist and master of the music has been held by a number of well-known musicians, including Peter Hurford, Stephen Darlington and Barry Rose. The current master of the music, since 1998, is Andrew Lucas. The assistant master of music at the cathedral is sometimes also the master of music at St Albans School — for example, Simon Lindley and Andrew Parnell.
Since 1963 the cathedral has been home to the St Albans International Organ Festival, founded by Peter Hurford, and winners of which include Dame Gillian Weir, Thomas Trotter and Naji Hakim.
Bells.
In total, there are 23 bells housed in the tower. The main ring of 12 bells (with a sharp 2nd) was cast in 2010 by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. These replaced the previous ring, 8 of which still remain in the tower and are used for the clock chime and carillon; the carillon plays a different tune every day of the week.
In the 17th century the cathedral housed a ring of 5 bells, until they were recast and augmented to 6 in 1699. In 1731 the bells were augmented to a ring of 8 by adding two new bells. Finally, in 2010 the 13 new bells were cast, and were rung for the first time at Easter 2011. The oldest bell in the tower was cast in c.1290 and is still used today as the sanctus bell.