WikiWeb_St Michael and All Angels Church, Marden_1

The church was begun around 1200 and was altered or extended in the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries and was restored in 1868 and 1909. The church is constructed variously of coursed and random sandstone, rag-stone and puddingstone and has plain tiled and lead roofs.
The nave is adjoined by aisles on the north and south sides, the one to the south continuing across the south face of the west tower. The chancel has chapels on the north and south side. The tower was built in the 13th or early 14th century and comprises three stone-built stages with a fourth stage, containing the belfry added later in white painted weatherboarding with a pyramidal roof. Louvred openings occupy the centre of each side of the belfry. Small rectangular or pointed lancet windows pierce the stonework on each external face of the lower stages, except the south face which abuts the south aisle. A square stair turret with window slits adjoins the north-west corner of the tower.
Both aisles are early 14th century. The south aisle has a rag-stone plinth, but the north aisle is plinthless. The south aisle has two buttresses with three large three-lighted 14th-century style arched windows; two to the west of the porch and one to the east. The western bay, attached to the south side of the tower was reconstructed in the 19th or early 20th century. The north aisle has a diagonal buttress on the north-west corner and two on the north side positioned between the three three-lighted windows. Two are original 14th-century and the third is 19th-century in the same style with traceried decoration. The west end of the north aisle contains a 19th-century two-lighted window. The west end of the south aisle is blank apart from a small blocked lancet window.
The early 14th century south porch occupies the secondmost eastern bay of the south aisle. Diagonal buttresses project from the outer corners. The inner and outer doorways are pointed arches and an octagonal stair turret to the parvis chamber is positioned in the angle at the north-west corner between the porch and the south aisle.
The chancel was built about 1200 and restored in 1868. It has no plinths or buttresses. The eastern end of the north and south walls each contain a single pointed arch window. The 19th century east window is three-lighted. The south chapel is 14th century as was partly rebuilt after a fire in 1554. The two-light window in the south wall and the three-light window in the east wall are both 19th century. The north chapel is 15th century with two two-light windows on the north side and a three-light window in the east end. All date from the 15th century with cinquefoil heads and tracery.
Internally, the nave is separated from the aisles with 14th-century arcades of three bays of pointed arches: octagonal columns in the south arcade and alternating circular and octagonal columns in the north arcade. The chancel arch is circa 1200 and the tower arch is 13th or early 14th century. The chapels are divided from the chancel with two bay arcades of pointed arches, each contemporary with the age of the adjacent chapel.  The roofs of the chancel, nave and the chapels are of crown post construction with the ridge of the roofs of the chancel and chapels being lower than the nave. The aisle roofs are lean-tos.
The font is octagonal and carved with initials and date "EM 1662". The octagonal wooden font cover with a central finial has hinged panels on four sides. Doorways to the parvis stairs and rood loft stairs are in the south wall of the south aisle and the south wall of the north aisle respectively. The three chancel windows contain stained glass by Patrick Reyntiens installed in 1962. The church contains memorials to Edward Cole (d. 1757) and George Maplesden (d. 1688).
The church is set in a large churchyard dotted with headstones. Close to the south aisle are Grade II listed stocks capable of holding two people.


The current church was built in Gothic Revival style. It follows a cruciform floor plan, with the main façade facing the river. The steeple, with its cross-topped spire, is built into centre of the façade, behind a Gothic gable. The church employs Gothic-arched doors and windows throughout, and its stained glass work is among the most beautiful in Thailand.
The church is an unregistered ancient monument, and received the Association of Siamese architects' Architectural Conservation Award in 1987.


The Holy Rosary Church (Thai: วัดแม่พระลูกประคำ, [wát mɛ̂ː pʰráʔ lûːk prā.kʰām]), also known as Kalawar Church (โบสถ์กาลหว่าร์, [bòːt kāːlāwàː]; from Portuguese: Calvario), is a Roman Catholic church in Bangkok. It is located in Samphanthawong District, on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River. The history of the church dates to 1769, when a group of Portuguese Catholics resettled in the area after the fall of Ayutthaya; the current church building, in Gothic Revival style, was built in 1891–97 on the site of two previous structures.


When King Taksin established Thonburi as his capital following the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, the Portuguese communities of Ayutthaya resettled in two areas of present-day Bangkok. Some followed the leadership of Father Jacques Corre, and settled on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River in the area now known as Kudi Chin where the Santa Cruz Church was soon established. Another faction, who had refused to accept the authority of the French Mission, settled on the eastern bank in an area now known as Talat Noi within Samphanthawong District. The latter brought with them two holy images: one of Our Lady of the Rosary, and the other of the Corpse of Christ. But without resident priests, they had no choice but to worship at Santa Cruz.
A church was first built at the site in 1787. It was a stilted wooden structure. The residents, however, still had to rely on French priests, whom they gradually accepted. In 1822, the church finally established communion with the Holy See, coming under the authority of Bishop Esprit-Marie-Joseph Florens, the Vicar Apostolic of Siam. By then, the Portuguese community was gradually dispersing, and Chinese immigrants soon became the church's main attendees.
In 1838, a new church building, of wood on a masonry base, was built to replace the old damaged structure. It was consecrated on 1 October 1839, and formally dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. By 1890, the structure had fallen into disrepair, and the pastor, Father Desalles, arranged for the construction of a new building. Construction took place from 1891 to 1897; the new church was consecrated in October 1897, and remains in operation.


The Suomenlinna Church (Finnish: Suomenlinnan kirkko, Swedish: Sveaborgs kyrka) in Helsinki, Finland, was built in 1854 as an Eastern Orthodox garrison church for the Russian troops stationed at the Suomenlinna sea fortress. The fortress comprises five islands joined together by bridges, and the church is the central feature on the island of Iso Mustasaari (Swedish: Stora Östersvartö), located at its highest point.  It is surrounded by other fortress buildings, but the old parade ground is immediately to the east, and a park lies immediately to the south. It is oriented southwest to northeast so that it would align with the Crownwork Ehrensvärd defense front located to the southwest of the church.
Before the design and construction of the Orthodox church, plans were drawn up in the 1820s by architect Carl Ludvig Engel for a church on the same site, but designed in the neoclassical style in keeping with the rest of buildings at the fortress and the buildings in the capital city, Helsinki. The actual church was designed by Konstantin Thon, an official architect of Imperial Russia during the reign of Czar Nicholas I, whose major works included the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand Kremlin Palace, and the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow.  The church was named for Saint/Prince Alexander Nevsky, who defeated the Swedes at the Neva battle of 1240. The Alexander Nevsky Church originally had five onion domes. The perimeter fence, constructed from cannons and chains, was erected in the 1870s. The church bell, the largest in Finland, was cast in Moscow in 1885 and weighs 6,683 kilograms. It is now displayed adjacent to the church. The church was elevated to the status of cathedral within the Orthodox faith in 1891.
In 1918 the Orthodox church was converted into an Evangelical Lutheran church, as Finland sought to indicate its new-found independence from Russia. The onion domes of the four smaller towers were immediately removed. The church's extensive iconography was warehoused by the city of Helsinki, but their current whereabouts are unknown. During the 1920s, it was decided to give the church an extensive renovation for structural repair as well as incorporation of a more Western design. The design competition was won by architect Einar Sjöström, and the finished church was reconsecrated on 28 April 1929.
Another interesting feature from the renovation is that the church's central dome has doubled as a lighthouse since 1929, making it one of only a few churches in the world that has that dual purpose. The lighthouse is officially the Harmaja Range Rear light, and it pairs with the Harmaja lighthouse (4.8 km south in the Gulf of Finland) as the Range Front light. The signal blink is the Morse code for the letter "H" for Helsinki.
Additional renovations have been made in the 1960s (after the church was turned over to the Evangelical Lutheran Parish Union of Helsinki), and again in the late 1980s and 1990s in preparation for the 250th anniversary of Suomenlinna in 1998. The Suomenlinna Church is still a very popular wedding site and one of the first landmarks for people arriving in Helsinki by sea.


The old frescoes were discovered in 1883 and restored by J. Kornerup in 1890. In 1934, smoke deposits from the old heating overs were removed as were Kornerup's painted additions. The wall paintings date from various periods. The oldest, of which only fragments remain, are from about 1275. They are located  on the walls of the choir. A second series, from 1325, date from the decoration of the walls in the nave. A depiction of the Trinity can be seen over the triumphal arch. The walls are decorated with holy figures, standing or sitting, in varying formats. They include images of what appear to be the Archangel Gabriel and Uriel. They are followed by the apostles, including Batholomy, Paul, Jacob and Andrew. At the foot of the wall, in a quadrangular area, there is a crucifixion grouping with Mary, John and a warrior, possibly belonging to a now absent lateral altar.
On the south wall, the only remains are traces of a painting below the pulpit's sounding board. The eastern section of the north wall displays images of Moses, Aaron, Joachim, and of Anne before the golden gate of Jerusalem. There are also images from the New Testament including those of the birth of Jesus, the Flight to Egypt, the Sherherds in the Field and the Stoning of Stephen. There is also a series of paintings at the eastern end of the Romanesque windows to the north, including a large image of a man, sitting in an arcade, as well as depictions of a king and a queen. At the beginning of the 15th century, there are depictions of Fikke Lauridsen of Spejlsby, an important figure of his times.
At the end of the 15th century, the newly completed vaults were decorated by the so-called Elmelunde Master. At the head of the eastern wall, Christ can be seen together with Mary and John the Baptist. On the north side, Peter stands opening the Gates of Heaven, while to the south there are two long-sleeved devils dragging the damned down to hell. The other sections contain images from the New Testament. The birth of Jesus and the Three Kings can be seen, then Jesus in the Tempel.


The western part of the nave and the church tower are the oldest parts of the asymmetrical church; they date from the early 13th century. A new chancel arch was built at the middle of the same century, and around circa 1300 the new choir was built. Reconstruction of the nave also started around this time; the original plan seems to have been to replace the entire nave with a new, larger nave but for some reason the work came to a halt. Similar, half-rebuilt churches are relatively common on Gotland. The sacristy was also built at this time. The interior of the church was decorated with medieval murals in the 15th century. The western, older part of the church is Romanesque in style; the eastern Gothic.
The church and its cemetery is surrounded by a low wall, with three lychgates. The oldest of these dates from the 13th century and display some original sculptured details.


Vallstena Church (Swedish: Vallstena kyrka) is a medieval church on the island of Gotland, Sweden. It belongs to the Diocese of Visby.


WikiWeb_St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park_0

St Michael and All Angels is a Grade II* listed Church of England parish church in Bedford Park, Chiswick. It was designed by the architect Norman Shaw, who built some of the houses in that area. The church was consecrated in 1880. It is constructed in what has been described both as British Queen Anne Revival style and as Perpendicular Gothic style modified with English domestic features. Its services are Anglo-Catholic.


WikiWeb_St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park_5

The church's roof and stained glass windows were seriously damaged by a Second World War bomb which destroyed the nearby Chiswick Polytechnic. The East Window was filled with new stained glass by Lawrence Lee in 1952. The church's exterior and roof were restored in 1980. In 2013 the bishop of London celebrated the completion of a 5-year project to replace the church organ. The new organ, which has 1667 pipes and 25 stops, was made by the Swiss company La Manufacture d'Orgues St Martin.


Vall Church (Swedish: Valls kyrka) is a medieval church on the Swedish island of Gotland. The largely Romanesque church dates from the 13th century. It belongs to the Diocese of Visby.


WikiWeb_Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi_0

The Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi (Russian: Храм Святителя Николая в Толмачах, romanized: Khram Svyatityelya Nikolaya v Tolmachakh) is both a Russian Orthodox house church and museum that is part of the State Tretyakov Gallery located in Moscow. The church is home to several religious relics and icons, including the culturally important Our Lady of Vladimir.
First mentioned in 1625 when it was a wooden church, it has since been reconstructed and restored several times. The church was ultimately closed in 1929 and became a neglected art storage house. Liturgical services were resumed after a unique arrangement between the Patriarchate and gallery were agreed to in 1993.


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It was not until 1993 that the temple was reopened for worship after an arrangement was made between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state gallery.
In September 1996, the church's restored main altar was sanctified by the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' Alexy II. A year later, restorations for the building were completed, and it became an active house church almost exactly 300 years after it was first constituted in stone. Security improvements to store and display art were added during this process, and an underground passageway was additionally made to connect it to the State Tretyakov Gallery.


The church was established in 1888 by the French Catholic missionary Fr. Augustin Tulpin, thus making it the oldest church in Aichi. The present chapel was constructed in 1904 in a fusion of Western and Japanese architecture, and underwent various extensions and renovations since then. The presbytery was constructed in 1930.
It is constructed in a fusion of Western and Japanese architecture. The chapel was constructed in 1904; it is still in use after several renovations.  As part of the Cultural Path of Nagoya, it is an important historic building of the city.


The Catholic Chikaramachi Church (カトリック主税町教会) is one of the oldest Christian churches in the city of Nagoya, central Japan.
The official name is Church of Our Lady (聖母教会).


San Antolín de Bedón is a church in Llanes, Asturias, Spain. The church was established in the 13th century. It located near the Monasterio de San Salvador (Celoriu) at the mouth of the River Bedón that divides in two the beach of San Antolin. Being a work with Cistercian construction features, it hardly presents any ornamentation.


The Église Saint-Maurice is a church on rue de Paris, in the historic centre of Lille, northern France. Its construction began at the end of the 14th century and completed at the end of the 19th century, and it was extended over more than four centuries. A hall church in the Gothic style, it was made a monument historique in 1914.


WikiWeb_Santissima Trinità a Via Condotti_1

The church and its adjoining convent were built by the Spanish Trinitarians between 1741 and 1746 under pope Benedict XIV. They were designed by the Portuguese architect Emanuele Rodriguez dos Santos, assisted by Giuseppe Sardi. It was on the site of the former palazzo Ruccellai, bought in 1733 for 25474 Roman scudi by Father Lorenzo of the Trinitarian Order, in the name of the provinces of Castiglia, Leone and Navarre. Shortly afterwards the foundation was placed under the protection of the Spanish crown.
The church has a concave facade with statues of the order's two founders saint John of Matha and saint Felix of Valois and the coat of arms of Philip V of Spain.


WikiWeb_Santissima Trinità a Via Condotti_0

Santissima Trinità a Via Condotti or Santissima Trinità degli Spagnoli is a church in Rome at the start of via Condotti in the Campo Marzio district. It is one of the national churches of Spain in Rome.


San Nicola is a church in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy.


San Nicola is mentioned for the first time, together with the annexed convent, in 1097. In 1297-1313 the Augustinians enlarged it, perhaps under design by Giovanni Pisano (eastern side). In the 17th century the edifice was restored with the addition of altars and the Sacrament Chapel by Matteo Nigetti (1614).
The façade features pilaster strips, blind arches and lozenges, and is decorated with 12th century intarsia.
The interior houses the panels of Madonna with Child (by Matteo Traini, 14th century) and of St. Nicholas Saving Pisa from the Plague (15th century), canvases by Giovanni Stefano Marucelli and Giovanni Biliverti, a Crucifix by Giovanni Pisano, a Madonna with Child by Nino Pisano and an Annunciation by Francesco di Valdambrino.
A covered passage connects the church to the Torre De Cantone and, from it, to the Palazzo delle Vedove: it was used by the Medici gentlewoman residing in the latter to reach the church without walking in the streets.


Bourg-en-Bresse Cathedral (Concathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Annonciation de Bourg-en-Bresse) is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Bourg-en-Bresse, France.
This church was previously the collegiate church of Notre-Dame-du-Bourg, which in 1992 was raised to the status of co-cathedral of the Diocese of Belley-Ars, as the bishop and diocesan administration of Belley, later Belley-Ars, had been resident in Bourg-en-Bresse since 1978.
Artistic holdings of the cathedral include a Pietà in oil by Anne Bricollet, signed and dated 1785.


WikiWeb_St. John in the Wilderness Church (Dharamshala)_0

St. John in the Wilderness is an Protestant church dedicated to John the Baptist. It was built in 1852 and is located near Dharamshala, India, on the way to McLeod Ganj, at Forsyth Gunj. Set amidst deodar forest, and built in neo-Gothic architecture, the Church is known for its Belgian stained-glass windows donated by Lady Elgin (Mary Louisa Lambton), wife of Lord Elgin. The Church is under Diocese of Amritsar.
Rev.Ajay Singh is the presbyter in charge of this church
Though the church structure survived the 1905 Kangra earthquake, which killed close to 19,800 people, injured thousands in the Kangra area, and destroyed most buildings in Kangra, Mcleod Ganj and Dharamshala; its spire, Bell tower, was destroyed. Later, a new bell, cast in 1915 by Mears and Stainbank, was brought from England and installed outside in the compound of the church.


Sant Quirze de Colera is a Benedictine monastery in Rabós, Catalonia, Spain.  The 9th-century building, in First Romanesque style, was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural landmark in 1931.


The Romanesque church tower is the oldest part of the church. It was built circa 1200. Originally it was attached to a Romanesque church, the nave and choir of which however was replaced with the presently visible Gothic parts at the end of the 13th century. The sacristy is the only non-medieval part of the church; it was built in 1866. The exterior of the church is decorated with Romanesque  reliefs, re-used from the earlier church and incorporated into the Gothic structure. Inside, the choir retains traces of original medieval murals.
Several of the church fittings are medieval. The baptismal font dates from the 12th century and was made by the sculptor Hegvald; it is considered one of the artist's finest pieces. The church also houses a triumphal cross from the same century. The altarpiece is also medieval but was altered in the 17th century. Most of the other fittings, such as the pews and the pulpit, date from later centuries.


Vänge Church (Swedish: Vänge kyrka) is a medieval church in Vänge on the island of Gotland, Sweden. Its oldest parts date to circa 1200. It belongs to the Diocese of Visby.


The current church dates from 1882 to 1884, when it was rebuilt to a design by the architect John Loughborough Pearson, except for the west tower which was built for William Bordall (vicar 1416–1435). Because of the small distance between the tower and the road at Church Street, Pearson made the nave short but wide, so it is nearly square in plan. The Duke of Devonshire gave £1,000 for the rebuilding, but most of the cost was paid for by Henry Smith of the nearby Griffin Brewery company, Fuller, Smith & Turner. The church is built of courses of squared Kentish ragstone masonry in the Perpendicular style. It has a stone coping with a copper roof.
Inside the church, surviving 15th-century features include the tall archway to the west tower and the hood-mould over the window above the west door.


St Nicholas Church, Chiswick is a Grade II* listed Anglican church in Church Street, Chiswick, London, near the River Thames. Old Chiswick developed as a village around the church from c. 1181. The tower was built at some time between 1416 and 1435.
The current church dates from 1882 to 1884, when most of the building except the tower was demolished and rebuilt at the expense of the brewer Henry Smith of the nearby Fuller, Smith and Turner brewery. Several monuments survive, mainly in the tower. In the churchyard is a monument to the Italian poet and patriot, Ugo Foscolo; his remains were returned to Italy, but the Italian government added an inscription to the monument. The painter William Hogarth's monument, near the church, has an epitaph by the actor David Garrick. In the burial ground is the grave of Frederick Hitch, Victoria Cross recipient and veteran of the Battle of Rorke's Drift.


Kangasniemi Church (Finnish: Kangasniemen kirkko) is a wooden church located in Kangasniemi, Finland. The church and the adjacent bell tower were both designed by Matti Salonen. The church was built in 1811–1814 and baptized on 1 January 1815 by Aron Molander. It accommodates approximately 1,500 people.


WikiWeb_Trinity with Palm Grove Church, Claughton_1

Originally known as Trinity Church, it was built between 1865 and 1866, and was designed by W. and J. Hay.  Initially it was a Presbyterian church. In 1977 Trinity Presbyterian Church was united with Palm Grove Methodist Church.


WikiWeb_Trinity with Palm Grove Church, Claughton_0

Trinity with Palm Grove Church is in Alton Road, Claughton, Birkenhead, Wirral, Merseyside, England.  It is a combined United Reformed and Methodist Church. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.


WikiWeb_Trinity with Palm Grove Church, Claughton_2

Trinity Church is constructed in rubble stone with dressings in red and yellow ashlar.  It has slated roofs.  The plan consists of a nave with a south porch, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a hall with a north porch at the east end, and a northwest tower with a spire.  At the west end is a doorway with a trefoil head flanked by lancet windows. Over this is a five-light window with Decorated tracery.  The porch is canted, and has a doorway with lancet windows above it.  Along the sides of the aisles each gabled bay contains three lancets and a two-light Decorated window above.  On the north and south sides of the transepts are two groups of three lancets, with a four-light Decorated window above.  The hall at the east end has an apse and a large gabled north porch.  On the north side of the tower is a doorway leading to a projecting stair turret.  In the top stage of the tower are paired bell openings under gables, and on the corners are pinnacles.  There are lucarnes on the spire.
Inside the church is a gallery that curves round three sides.  This is carried on square cast iron columns, and contains raked seating.  The columns continue up to the roof, and have foliate capitals.  At the east end of the church is a central octagonal pulpit, reading desks and a lectern, all of which are flanked by choir stalls.


WikiWeb_First Presbyterian Church (Hartford City, Indiana)_0

The First Presbyterian Church of Hartford City is a Presbyterian church in Hartford City, Indiana, United States. The edifice is the oldest church building in a small city that at one time was a bustling community with as many as ten glass factories – and over 20 saloons.    Located at the corner of High and Franklin Streets, the church is part of the Hartford City Courthouse Square Historic District. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Construction of the house of worship began in 1892 and was completed in 1893. The church building is considered one of the city's best examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style of architecture.  One aspect of the building that makes it particularly notable is its windows. The church features massive stained glass windows that were hand-crafted in Belgium and assembled by local glass workers originally from that country.
At the time the church was constructed, the region was undergoing substantial economic growth related to the discovery of natural gas, and this period is known as the Indiana Gas Boom. Most of the city's distinctive buildings within its Courthouse Square Historic District were built during that period, including both buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places—the Blackford County Courthouse and the First Presbyterian Church.


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The new building renewed interest in the Presbyterian Church. Membership in 1895 grew to 253, and Sunday school enrollment was over 300.  Over the first one hundred years, minor changes were made to the church, including moving doorways and modifications to the sanctuary. For example, notice the door on the south side of the west wall on the right side of the pre-1910 picture herein (Construction section). A picture of the church from a publication dated 1895 also shows the south door.  The door no longer exists, as can be seen in the west wall (High Street side) picture from 2010 (Architecture section). The door must have been removed early in “life” of the building, since a postcard of the church dated circa 1910 also does not have the south door on the west wall.
One of the first modifications to the interior of the church was the enlargement of the pulpit and choir platform. This was done to accommodate a larger choir. The platform was enlarged again in 1912, when the church purchased a pipe organ.
During the 1920s, Sunday School attendance peaked at 500. Because of the larger number of attendees of the Sunday School classes, it was proposed to add a building to the east end of the church's property. However, concerns about debt caused that plan to be abandoned, and replaced with a lower-cost plan. The plan involved closing off the east lecture room, and was implemented in the early 1930s. The result was a balcony on the east side of the sanctuary and six class rooms. A few years later, in 1936, the sanctuary was completely redecorated.
The 1930s and 1940s marked some of the peak years of the church's attendance. Newer generations of the city's prominent names from the church's 19th century membership, such as Emshwiller, Fulton, Gable and Willman, continued to be part of the church's congregation. The congregation was also well represented in the city's important glass industry, with surnames such as Crimmel (Sneath Glass Company) and Fulton (Fulton Glass Company).   Membership during the 1940s was as high as 438.  The last major change to the church structure was made in 1959, when construction began for an east wing. Currently, the bell (see photo herein) from the bell tower rests on the ground on the south side of the building. The bell was removed from the tower because of safety concerns and to reduce strain on the tower structure.


WikiWeb_Church of Saint-Jean de Montierneuf_0

The Church of Saint-Jean de Montierneuf is a Roman Catholic church in Poitiers, France.
The church was built in the 11th century and is notable for its Romanesque architecture.
It has been listed as a Monument historique since 1840.


WikiWeb_Basilica of Saint Severinus of Bordeaux_8

Though the Basilica of Saint Severinus was spared during the French Revolution, it was headed for a century of profound changes in the 1800s.
In the late 1820s, the western façade was restored by order of the Saint Severinus Building Council. To accomplish this the council hired architect Pierre-Alexandre Poitevin to create a neo-Romanesque façade. The construction of the porch gate hides the Romanesque porch.
Sculptor Dominique Fortuné Maggesi (1801-1892), an artist from Carrara who would go one to the greatest sculptor in the history of Bordeaux, was chosen to decorate the façade. He adorned the entrance with statues of Saint Severinus and Saint Amand whose encounter is depicted on the tympanum.He also carved statues of Saint John and Saint Peter which adorn the balustrade on the upper floor. This was done to give homogeneity to both the façade and Romanesque bell tower of the basilica.
In 1840, the Basilica of Saint Severinus was listed in the Inventory of Historic Monuments (French: l'inventaire des Monuments Historiques). Following this classification, its choir was completely reorganized and a new marble altar was made..  Arcades were opened and two chapels were dedicated: one to Saint Fort and other one to the Sacred Heart. They were built on the north side of the basilica. The painter and glassmaker Joseph Villiet signed the stained glass windows of the nave that he created which depict scenes from the bible as well as the history and legends that surround the basilica.


WikiWeb_Basilica of Saint Severinus of Bordeaux_0

The Basilica of Saint Severinus (or Basilique Saint-Seurin de Bordeaux, in French) is a church built in Bordeaux at the dawn of the 11th century.
In 1998, UNESCO designated the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France as a World Heritage site, including the three main churches of Bordeaux : the basilica of St. Severinus, the  basilica of St Michael and the St. Andrew's cathedral.


WikiWeb_Basilica of Saint Severinus of Bordeaux_14

The basilica has benefited from restoration in recent decades. The roofs were redone, as were upper parts of the basilica. The chapels of Madonna of the Rose and Saint John as well as choir were restored.
In 2005, the Gothic entrance benefitted from a restoration funded by the city of Bordeaux and Historic Monuments. During this restoration, that traces of the original polychrome were discovered. This import discovery allows one to imagine the entrance in its original state.


WikiWeb_Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn_2

The church has a plain, white-washed exterior with crow-stepped gables, an octagonal tower with the above-mentioned reconstructed renaissance spire and few but rather large Gothic windows with fine stone dressing. The stained glass windows are late 20th century. Most noteworthy in the exterior is the finely carved clock, a work by Christian Ackermann (late 17th century).
The layout of the interior is somewhat unusual, with the choir located asymmetrically to the north and a two-aisled nave. Of the interior decoration, especially the remarkable main altar, a work by Bernt Notke, is noteworthy. It dates from 1483 and depicts, on the central panel, the descent of the Holy Ghost on the twelve apostles at Pentecost. The galleries in the church are richly decorated with scenes from the Bible, painted in the mid-17th century and probably by different artists. Of more recent origin is the organ, dating from 1929, and a commemorative plaque next to the altar, put up in memory of British sailors who lost their lives during the British campaign in the Baltic (1918–1919).


WikiWeb_Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn_0

The Church of the Holy Ghost or Church of the Holy Spirit (Estonian: Püha Vaimu kirik, , German: Heiliggeistkirche ) is a medieval Lutheran church in the old town district of Tallinn, Estonia. It is located behind Raekoja plats, and lies opposite the Great Guild and Maiasmokk, Tallinn's oldest café.


The church is built in red brick and designed in the Dutch Baroque style. It has a rectangular floor plan with a slightly progressing median risalit on the facade toward Gothersgade, decorated with Ionic pilasters and a triangular pediment. Above the entrance there is a cartouche with the monograms of Christian V and Charlotte Amalie and an inscription from Isaiah 2.3.
The hipped roof with black tiles is topped by a copper-clad flèche with two lanterns which rises 13.5 metres above the roof. It was added in 1731 in connection with the rebuilding after the fire.


Reformed Church (Danish: Reformert Kirke) in Gothersgade, opposite Rosenborg Castle, is a church building used by the reformed congregations in Copenhagen, Denmark. Consecrated in 1689, the church was instigated by Queen Charlotte Amalie, consort of King Christian V, who was herself a German Calvinist. The church is noted for its fine Baroque interiors which date from 1730 when it was restored after being damaged in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728.


Prior to her marriage to King Christian V of Denmark in 1667, Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel had requested, and had been granted for herself and her court, the right to profess freely her Reformed faith.
In 1685, encouraged by his queen, Christian V licensed the formation of a reformed congregation among German, Dutch and French immigrants. Mainly refugees, many members of the congregation held prominent positions in society, typically as merchants, craftsmen, often with new trades, or military officers. After a few years the congregation split into a German Reformed Church and a French Reformed Church.
Charlotte Amelia also personally financed the erection of the church building on a prominent site in Gothersgade, opposite Rosenborg Castle. The architect was Hendrik Brokhamm, a Dutch sculptor who had recently arrived in Denmark and later worked with Lambert van Haven, for instance on the Church of Our Saviour at Christianshavn where he executed the main portal.
Charlotte Amalie placed the foundation stone on 20 April 1688, and the building was consecrated on 10 November 1689. The German and French reformed churches shared the new church. The complex also included a rectory, with residences for four priests, a school, an old age asylum, and an orphanage.
The church was badly damaged in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728 but was subsequently rebuilt with new furnishings attributed the sculptor Friederich Ehbisch (c. 1672–1748).
In 1886 the architect Ludvig Knudsen built a community house for the congregation (menighedshus) and a multi-storey building and in 1880 he conducted a restoration of the church.


Notre-Dame de Clignancourt (Our Lady of Clignancourt) is a Roman Catholic church located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Completed in 1863, the church takes its name from Clignancourt, a small village in the commune of Montmartre that was annexed to Paris in 1860. It was one of three new parishes created to accommodate the growing population in the northern edge of the city.
The cornerstone was laid by the French city planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann in 1859. It was designed in the  Neo-Romanesque style by Paul-Eugène Lequeux and completed in 1863. Many valuable pieces of furniture and religious objects were donated by Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, but were lost or damaged when the church was pillaged in the violence leading up to the Paris Commune in 1870.
The church still contains paintings and frescos by prominent 19th-century artists, including Romain Cazes and Félix-Joseph Barrias, and a large marble sculpture depicting the Pietà. The stained glass windows in the lower part of the church are largely from the Art Deco period. The windows in the choir, depicting the Holy Trinity and the Litany of Loreto, were made by Jacques Le Chevallier in the 1970s.
The organ in Notre-Dame de Clignancourt was built by Joseph Merklin. Several prominent musicians are associated with the church. Gabriel Fauré and Victor Sieg both served as organists there. Louis Vierne played the organ for the funeral of the French violinist Henri Adam held at the church in 1890, and the composer André Jolivet attended the church's choir school in his youth.


The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple. At each end is a portico with six columns. There are no windows and the building is lit from above. Inside, a coffered ceiling is supported by Ionic columns. Pollard and Pevsner consider this to be Foster's best surviving building. On 28 June 1952 it was designated as a Grade I listed building. In the National Heritage List for England it is described as "one of the purest monuments of the Greek Revival in England". Around the Oratory are cast iron railings and gate piers that have been listed at Grade II.


The Oratory was built in 1829, and used for funeral services before burials in the adjacent cemetery. It was designed by John Foster. When the cemetery closed, the building fell into disuse. In 1986 it came under the care of National Museums Liverpool, and is used to contain a collection of sculpture and statues.


The Oratory stands to the north of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral in Merseyside, England. It was originally the mortuary  chapel to St James Cemetery, and houses a collection of 19th-century sculpture and important funeral monuments as part of the Walker Art Gallery. It is a Grade I listed building in the National Heritage List for England.


The Coughton estate has been owned by the Throckmorton family since 1409. The estate was acquired through marriage to the De Spinney family. Coughton was rebuilt by Sir George Throckmorton, the first son of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton Court by Catherine Marrow, daughter of William Marrow of London. The great gatehouse was dedicated to King Henry VIII by Throckmorton, a favourite of the King who spent most of his life rebuilding Coughton. Throckmorton would become notorious due to his almost fatal involvement in the divorce between King Henry and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. He  favoured the queen and was against the Reformation.  In 1549, when he was planning the windows in the great hall, he asked his son Nicholas to obtain from the heralds the correct tricking (colour abbreviations) of the arms of his ancestors' wives and his own cousin and niece by marriage Queen Catherine Parr (see gallery drawing). The costly recusancy (refusal to attend Anglican Church services) of his eldest son, Robert, and his heirs restricted later rebuilding, so that much of the house still stands largely as he left it.
After Throckmorton's death in 1552, Coughton passed to his eldest son, Robert. The family were practicing Catholics and so the house at one time contained a priest hole, a hiding place for priests during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I of England. The Hall also holds a place in English history for its roles in both the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 to murder Queen Elizabeth, and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, although the Throckmorton family were themselves only indirectly implicated in the latter, when some of the Gunpowder conspirators rode directly there after its discovery.
The house has been in the ownership of the National Trust since 1946. The family, however, hold a 300-year lease and previously managed the property on behalf of the Trust. In 2007, however, the house reverted to management by the National Trust. The management of the property is renewed every 10 years. The family tenant was Clare McLaren-Throckmorton, known professionally as Clare Tritton QC, until she died on 31 October 2017.
The house, which is open to the public all year round, is set in extensive grounds including a walled formal garden, a river and a lake.


Farnborough Hall is a country house in Warwickshire, England near to the town of Banbury, (grid reference SP4349). The property has been owned by the National Trust since 1960 when the Holbech family endowed it to them, and is still run for the National Trust by Geoffrey Holbech's daughter Caroline Beddall. It is a Grade I listed building.
The Holbech family acquired the Farnborough estate in 1684 and the honey-coloured (Hornton) stone house was built soon after. The family first moved into the house in 1692, and apart from in both the First World War and Second World War when the house was used as an auxiliary hospital, the family have lived in the main house and it remains the seat of the Holbech family.
William Holbech bought the estate in 1684 and built the house but the major changes to the property occurred between 1745 and 1750 when the entrance front was remodelled and the rococo plasterwork was added to the interior. This work was carried out by William Holbech (son of William Holbech who bought the estate) who wanted a suitable setting for the sculpture and art he had brought back from his Grand Tour around Italy, particularly Venice. His close friend was the painter Canaletto who was commissioned to produce four artworks (in two orders) to hang in the main Dining Room. Three paintings by Pannini were also commissioned by William Holbech. The originals of the Canaletto and Pannini paintings were sold in the 1920s after the First War but copies still hang today in their place today. He used designs by his close friend Sanderson Miller for the landscape, an architect, who lived a few miles away. Sanderson Miller's good friend was a little known man at the time but who went on to design most of the great landscapes that still exist today: his name was Capability Brown. Long Palladian facades with sash windows, pedimented doorways and a balustraded roofline were also added to the earlier classical west front.
Unlike many of its contemporaries, Farnborough Hall and its landscaped gardens have experienced little alteration in the last 250 years and they remain largely as William Holbech left them. The house has been described by historians as a "small but exquisite" country house with the original Roman busts and plasterwork being exemplary, but with the main attraction to visitors being the Sanderson Miller landscape and gardens, including the Rose Garden and Orangery (since demolished) that was designed by Henry Hakewill in the early 19th century as part of extensive remodelling of the gardens at the time.
The entrance opens straight into the Italianate hall. The walls are adorned with busts of Roman emperors set into oval niches and the panelled ceiling is stuccoed with rococo motifs. The dining room on the south front was especially designed to display works by Canaletto and Giovanni Paolo Panini. The original works were sold in the 1920s, being replaced by copies. The drawing room has panels of elaborate stuccowork featuring scrolls, shells, fruit and flowers; these serve as a framework for more Italian works of art. A stucco garland of fruit and flowers encircles the skylight above the staircase hall.


To the south-east of the main house a grassy Terrace Walk is flanked by trees with excellent views north over the Warwickshire plain. The Terrace leads past two temples, an Ionic temple and the oval pavilion, which has two storeys and elaborate Plasterwork, to an Obelisk at the end of the walk. The 80 feet (24 m) high obelisk was completed in 1751 (rebuilt in 1828 after it collapsed in 1823) and contains the names of many visitors etched into the base but notably one of an Italian prisoner of war that was inscribed on the base during the Second World War, as the house was used as an Auxiliary Hospital  during both the First World War and Second World War.


Melrose House is a stately mansion and museum located on Burgers Park in Pretoria, South Africa.


Built in 1886 by the prosperous Pretoria businessman George Jesse Heys, it was named after the famous Melrose Abbey in Scotland. Melrose House gained fame during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) when Lord Roberts requisitioned it as the headquarters for the British forces after Pretoria was invaded in June 1900. For more than 18 months, instructions for the British forces in the field were issued from here. The use of the house as a military headquarters ended when the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the war, was signed there on 31 May 1902.
The Pretoria City Council purchased the house and its contents in 1967 for R300,000 for restoration, culminating in State President of South Africa Charles Robberts Swart opening it as a museum and declaring it a national heritage site on May 17, 1971.


Hill Top is a 17th-century house in Near Sawrey near Hawkshead, in the English county of Cumbria. It is an example of Lakeland vernacular architecture with random stone walls and slate roof. The house was once the home of children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter who left it to the National Trust. It is a Grade II* listed building. It is open to the public as a writer's house museum, shown as Beatrix Potter herself would have known it.
The Hill Top garden is of interest, being maintained in a style in keeping with Potter's illustrations.


Hill Top once belonged to Beatrix Potter, the children's author and illustrator known for a series of small format books, especially the character Peter Rabbit. Potter bought the house and its 34-acre (14 ha) working farm in 1905 as her home away from London and her artistic retreat. She left the house to the National Trust upon her death in 1943. The house, farm and nearby villages feature in Potter's books, The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck and The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding.
The farm was managed by John Cannon. The wing on the left was built by Potter for Cannon and his family in 1906. The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck was dedicated to his children, Ralph and Betsy, who appear in the illustrations, as does their mother.


Syon House /ˈsaɪən/ is the west London residence of the Duke of Northumberland.  A Grade I listed building, it lies within the 200-acre (80 hectare) Syon Park, in the London Borough of Hounslow.
The family's traditional central London residence had been Northumberland House, now demolished. The eclectic interior of Syon House was designed by the architect Robert Adam in the 1760s.


Syon House's exterior was erected in 1547 while under the ownership of the 1st Duke of Somerset.  Syon's current interior was designed by Robert Adam in 1762 under the commission of the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.
The well known "Adam style" is said to have begun with Syon House. It was commissioned to be built in the Neo-classical style, which was fulfilled, but Adam's eclectic style doesn't end there. Syon is filled with multiple styles and inspirations including a huge influence of Roman antiquity, highly visible Romantic, Picturesque, Baroque and Mannerist styles and a dash of Gothic. There is also evidence in his decorative motifs of his influence by Pompeii that he received while studying in Italy.  Adam's plan of Syon House included a complete set of rooms on the main floor, a domed rotunda with a circular inner colonnade meant for the main courtyard ('meant for' meaning that this rotunda was not built due to a lack of funds), five main rooms on the west, east and south side of the building, a pillared ante-room famous for its colour, a Great Hall, a grand staircase (though not built as grand as originally designed) and a Long Gallery stretching 136 feet long.  Adam's most famous addition is the suite of state rooms and as such they remain exactly as they were built.
More specific to the interior of Adam's rooms is where the elaborate detail and colour shines through.  Adam added detailed marble chimneypieces, shuttering doors and doorways in the Drawing Room, along with fluted columns with Corinthian capitals.  The long gallery, which is about 14 feet high and 14 feet wide, contains many recesses and niches into the thick wall for books along with rich and light decoration and stucco-covered walls and ceiling.  At the end of the gallery is a closet with a domed circle supported by eight columns; halfway through the columns is a doorway imitating a niche.
In the 1820s the north range of the house that was not completed by Adam was redesigned by the 3rd Duke. At this time the house was also refaced in Bath stone and the porch rebuilt.  This remodelling is thought to have been done by the architect Thomas Cady, who had worked on other estates belonging to the Percy family.
Syon House was refurbished again in the 1860s.  The 4th Duke had Renaissance-style plaster ceilings put into the Family Drawing Room, Family Dining Room and Print Room.
The final plan of Syon House includes an entrance hall, ante-room, State Dining Room, State Drawing Room, Long Gallery, study, sitting room, Print Room, Family Drawing Room, Family Dining Room, private apartments on the top floor for the family to live in and a grand staircase.


Wilberforce House is a British historic house museum, part of the Museums Quarter of Kingston-upon-Hull. It is the birthplace of social reformer William Wilberforce (1759–1833), who used his time as a member of Parliament to work for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. Like the nearby Blaydes House and Maister House, also on the High Street, the Grade I listed building was formerly a merchant's house with access to quayside on the River Hull.
The house is now a museum showcasing the life and work of one of Hull's most famous sons. The museum re-opened on 25 March 2007, after a two-year £1.6 million redevelopment, in time for the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's Act of Parliament abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
The front garden, named after Nelson Mandela,contains a statue of Wilberforce which underwent a £10,000 restoration in 2011. The statue was designated a Grade II* in 1994 and is now recorded in the National Heritage List for England, maintained by Historic England. Adjoining the site is Oriel Chambers, the home of the University of Hull's Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation which conducts research into historic and contemporary forms of slavery.
The house also exhibits the East Yorkshire regimental collection.


Levens Hall is a manor house in the Kent valley, near the village of Levens and 5 miles (9 km) south of Kendal in Cumbria, Northern England.


The first house on the site was a pele tower built by the Redman family in around 1350. Much of the present building dates from the Elizabethan era, when the Bellingham family extended the house. The Bellinghams, who were responsible for the fine panelling and plasterwork in the main rooms, sold the house and estate in 1689 to Colonel James Grahme, or Graham, Keeper of the Privy Purse to King James II, who made a number of additions to the house in the late 17th century. His son Henry Graham was a knight of the shire for Westmorland.
Further additions were made in the early 19th century.
Levens is now owned by the Bagot family and is open to the public.  The small collection of steam road vehicles includes several traction engines which are usually steamed on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
In October 2021, the building was one of 142 sites across England to receive part of a £35-million injection into the government's Culture Recovery Fund.
In the 1960s Levens Hall was reportedly haunted by a Grey Lady.


Framlingham Castle is a castle in the market town of Framlingham in Suffolk in England. An early motte and bailey or ringwork Norman castle was built on the Framlingham site by 1148, but this was destroyed (slighted) by Henry II of England in the aftermath of the Revolt of 1173–1174. Its replacement, constructed by Roger Bigod, the Earl of Norfolk, was unusual for the time in having no central keep, but instead using a curtain wall with thirteen mural towers to defend the centre of the castle. Despite this, the castle was successfully taken by King John in 1216 after a short siege. By the end of the 13th century, Framlingham had become a luxurious home, surrounded by extensive parkland used for hunting.
During the 15th and 16th centuries Framlingham was at the heart of the estates of the powerful Mowbray and Howard families. Two artificial meres were built around the castle, which was expanded in fashionable brick. With a large, wealthy household to maintain, the castle purchased supplies from across England and brought in luxury goods from international markets. Extensive pleasure gardens were built within the castle and older parts redesigned to allow visitors to enjoy the resulting views. By the end of the 16th century, however, the castle fell into disrepair and after the final Howard owner, Theophilus, entered into financial difficulties the castle and the surrounding estates were sold off.
In 1636, Framlingham Castle was given to Pembroke College, Cambridge, as a philanthropic gesture, and remained in its ownership for some three hundred years. In the 17th century, the internal buildings were taken down to make way for the construction of a poor law workhouse within the castle; it was used in this way until 1839, when the facility was closed; the castle was then used as a drill hall and as a county court. In 1913, Pembroke College placed Framlingham into the guardianship of the Commissioner of Works. During the Second World War, Framlingham Castle was used by the British Army as part of the regional defences against a potential German invasion. Today, the Castle is managed by English Heritage and run as a tourist attraction. It is protected under British law as a Grade I listed building and as a scheduled monument.


In 1613 James I returned the castle to Thomas Howard, the Earl of Suffolk, but the castle was now derelict and he chose to live at Audley End House instead. Thomas's son, Theophilus Howard, fell heavily into debt and sold the castle, the estate and the former Great Park to Sir Robert Hitcham in 1635 for £14,000; as with several other established parks, such as Eye, Kelsale and Hundon, the Great Park was broken up turned into separate estates. Hitcham died the following year, leaving the castle and the manor to Pembroke College in Cambridge, with the proviso that the college destroy the internal castle buildings and construct a workhouse on the site instead, operating under the terms of the recently passed Poor Law.
After the collapse of the power of the Howards, the county of Suffolk was controlled by an oligarchy of Protestant gentry by the 17th century and did not play a prominent part in the English Civil War that occurred between 1642 and 1646. Framlingham Castle escaped the slighting that occurred to many other English castles around this time. Hitcham's bequest had meanwhile become entangled in the law courts and work did not begin on the workhouse until the late 1650s, by which time the internal buildings of castle were being broken up for the value of their stone; the chapel had been destroyed in this way by 1657.
The workhouse at Framlingham, the Red House, was finally built in the Inner Court and the poor would work there so they were eligible for relief; it proved unsatisfactory and, following the mismanagement of the workhouse funds, the Red House was closed and used as a public house instead. The maintenance of the meres ceased around this time and much of the area returned to meadow. In 1699 another attempt was made to open a poorhouse on the site, resulting in the destruction of the Great Chamber around 1700. This poorhouse failed too, and in 1729 a third attempt was made – the Great Hall was pulled down and the current poorhouse built on its site instead. Opposition to the Poor Law grew, and in 1834 the law was changed to reform the system; the poorhouse on the castle site was closed by 1839, the inhabitants being moved to the workhouse at Wickham Market.
The castle continued to fulfil several other local functions. During the outbreak of plague in 1666, the castle was used as an isolation ward for infected patients, and during the Napoleonic Wars the castle was used to hold the equipment and stores of the local Framlingham Volunteer regiment. Following the closure of the poorhouse, the castle was then used as a drill hall and as a county court, as well as containing the local parish jail and stocks.
In 1913 the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act was passed by Parliament and Pembroke College took the opportunity to place Framlingham into the guardianship of the Commissioner of Works. The undulating Inner Court was levelled up to its present form as part of the Commissioner's maintenance works. During the Second World War, Framlingham was an important defensive location for British forces; at least one concrete pill box was built near to the castle as part of the plans to counter any German invasion, and Nissen huts were erected and a lorry park created in the Bailey.
Today, Framlingham Castle is a scheduled monument and a grade I listed building, managed by English Heritage and run as a tourist attraction, incorporating the Lanman Museum of local history. The castle mere is owned by Framlingham College and run by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.


Breamore House is an Elizabethan manor house noted for its fine collection of paintings and furniture and situated NW of Breamore village, north of Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England. Though it remains in private hands, it is open to visitors from April to October.
Breamore House was completed in 1583 by the Dodington family, and was built on the site of Breamore Priory. The building underwent minor changes in the 18th century and underwent considerable restoration after a major fire in 1856.
Purchased in the 18th century by Sir Edward Hulse,  M.D., Baronet, and physician to Queen Anne and Kings George I  and George II, the home is still inhabited by the Hulse family (see Hulse baronets).
After marriage with Dame Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London and owner of Kew Palace, the Hulse family acquired many heirlooms of the Sussex Levetts, an ancient Norman family, which are on display in the house.
Levett's other daughter, Frances, married Thomas Lewis Esq. of St. Pierre, Monmouthshire, Wales; his daughter Mary married Abraham Blackborne, a London merchant who lived at Clapham, whose son, also named Abraham, vicar of Dagenham, married Frances Fanshawe, daughter of Thomas Fanshawe of Parsloes Manor.
Sir Edward Hulse's only daughter, Elizabeth, married John Calvert of Albury Hall, Hertfordshire in 1757. John Calvert was member of Parliament for Wendover in 1754 and later for Hertford. The wedding was performed by Abraham Blackborne, vicar of Dagenham, Essex. The brothers Thomas, Edward and Richard, sons of Sir Edward Hulse and his wife Elizabeth, all attended the University of Cambridge. A fourth son, Levett, died as an infant.


Red House is a significant Arts and Crafts building located in Bexleyheath, south-east London, England. Co-designed in 1859 by the architect Philip Webb and the designer William Morris, it was created to serve as a family home for Morris. Construction was completed in 1860.
Following an education at the University of Oxford, Morris decided to construct a rural house for himself and his new wife, Jane Morris, within a commuting distance of central London. Purchasing a plot of land in what at the time was the village of Upton in Kent, he employed his friend Webb to help him design and construct the house, financing the project with money inherited from his wealthy family. Morris was deeply influenced by Medievalism and Medieval-inspired Neo-Gothic styles are reflected throughout the building's design. It was constructed using Morris' ethos of craftsmanship and artisan skills and is an early example of what came to be known as the Arts and Crafts movement.
A number of Morris' friends visited, most notably the Pre-Raphaelite painters Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both of whom aided him in decorating the House; various Burne-Jones wall murals remain. While at Red House, Morris was involved in the formation of his design company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., and embarked on his earliest wallpaper designs. It was also here that his two daughters, Jenny and May, were born. Although initially intending to live there for the rest of his life, Morris found that the house proved too expensive to run and did not suit his lifestyle. After five years, he moved his family to a flat in Queen Square, Bloomsbury and sold the property.
Red House remained a private residence for various individuals from 1866 until 2002, during which period various alterations were made to the interior design. In 1950 it was designated a Grade I listed building by English Heritage. From 1952 to 1999 the architect Edward Hollamby lived at the House, initiating attempts at preservation and establishing the Friends of Red House charity in 1998. In 2003, the National Trust purchased the property, undertaking a project of conservation and maintaining it as a visitor attraction with an accompanying tea room and gift shop.


After Doris Hollamby put the house up for sale, an anonymous benefactor purchased it and donated it to The National Trust, who completed the purchase in 2003, with the Friends of Red House continuing to organise tours. Contributions from the William Morris Society and Bexley Council also aided the Trust in purchasing the building. It has since performed further restoration and research to restore the house as much as possible to its original condition. The house is open to the public, but not every day; guided tours must be advance-booked and unguided visits are available for limited periods. There is a tea room with a gift shop.
In November 2004, the National Trust organised a seminar titled "Red House: Past and Future Lives" at the Art Workers' Guild at which various specialists in the house presented papers on the subject.
In 2013, a previously unknown mural depicting five figures from the Book of Genesis was discovered in Morris' bedroom at the house. It was believed that it resembled the joint work of Morris, Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Siddal, and Ford Madox Brown; as a result, the building's property manager James Breslin described the mural as being "of international significance".


Morris envisioned Red House as being not only a family home, but also a background to his ongoing artistic work. He wanted it to be situated in a rural area that was not far from London, and chose to search in Kent because it was his favourite county; he particularly enjoyed its geographical mix of large open spaces with small hills and rivers, favourably contrasting it to the flat expanse of his native Essex. After looking at various locations for sale in the area, he settled on a plot of land in the village of Upton in West Kent; although ten miles to London by road, it was situated three miles from the nearest railway station, Abbey Wood railway station. At Upton, Morris purchased an orchard and a meadow, wanting his new home to be surrounded by an apple and cherry orchard. Morris would likely have been pleased that Upton was close to the track that pilgrims followed to Canterbury Cathedral during the Middle Ages, and would also have had the opportunity to visit the ruins of the Medieval Lesnes Abbey which were around three miles away.
While Red House was under construction, Morris and his wife lived in rented accommodations at 41 Great Ormond Street, just along the road from Webb's office, at 7 Great Ormond Street. However, as the project neared completion, the Morrises moved to Amberley Lodge, close to the site, so that Morris could monitor the builder's progress. Webb and Morris would work on the design of the house together. Thus, the National Trust have described it as "a complex fusion of Morris's romantic utopianism and Webb's practical common sense", while Edward and Doris Hollamby described it as "a collaborative effort in which we cannot separate one from the other". Red House would be Webb's first project as an independent architect, while it remained the only house that Morris ever built.  The actual construction was given to a contractor, and the structure took a year to build. It cost Morris approximately £4,000, at a time when the value of his shares was dropping.
Unique in its design, Red House was designed to an L-shaped plan, with two stories and a high-pitched roof made of red tile. The large hall, dining room, library, morning room, and kitchen were located on the ground floor, while on the first floor were situated the main living rooms, the drawing room, the studio, and the bedrooms. The servants' quarters were larger than in most contemporary buildings, reflecting the embryonic ideas regarding working class conditions which would lead Morris and Webb to become socialists in later life. Windows were positioned to suit the design of the rooms rather than to fit an external symmetry; thus a variety of different window types are present, including tall casements, hipped dormers, round-headed sash-windows, and bull's eye windows. The house lacked any applied ornamentation, with its decorative features instead serving constructional purposes, such as the arches over the windows, and the louvre in the open roof over the staircase. According to Morris' biographer J.W. Mackail, the external design of the house was "plain almost to severity, and depended for its effect on its solidity and fine proportion." This was somewhat radical at the time, as most contemporary buildings were heavily furnished with ornamentation. Rosseti termed it "a real wonder of the age ... which baffles all description", while Morris biographer Fiona MacCarthy described it as "the ultimate Pre-Raphaelite building".
The architecture of Red House was inspired by styles of British design from the thirteenth century, and Morris described the building as being "very mediaeval in spirit". Historian E.P. Thompson asserted that the house "was built, not–as in previous Gothic revivals–in an attempt to combine a number of superficial medieval characteristics which pleased the taste of the architect, but in a definite attempt to adapt late Gothic methods of building to the needs of the nineteenth century."
Later owners of the property, Edward and Doris Hollamby, described Red House as Webb and Morris' attempt to "apply Gothic principles to domestic architecture without archaeological imitation". While asserting that it was certainly "a far cry from the Victorian bourgeois norm", MacCarthy stated that it was "by no means a revolutionary building", having much in common with other Neo-Gothic buildings of the period, comparing its "complicated dense" interiors to those of the architect Augustus Pugin.
When the building itself had been constructed, Morris set about decorating the interior, however specifically chose to design and create almost everything himself. Only a few pieces of decor were pre-bought as ready-made items, namely the Persian carpets, and blue china or delft. Morris took his painted settle from the Red Lion Square flat and had it transported in pieces to Red House, where it was reassembled in the drawing room. Many other items of furniture were specially designed by Webb, including the oak dining table, other tables, chairs, cupboards, copper candlesticks, fire dogs, and glass tableware. The plastered walls and ceilings were given simple designs in tempera, although more complex designs were planned for the hall and main living rooms. Stained glass windows were installed in the house, with designs created by Burne-Jones and Webb. In reference to the route taken by Medieval pilgrims headed to Canterbury, Morris termed the passage which connects the main hallway to the house's rear entrance, "The Pilgrim's Rest". The garden was similarly unique in its design, with Morris insisting on integration of the design of the house and garden; the latter was divided into four small square gardens by trellises on which roses grew. The flower beds were bordered with lavender and rosemary while lilies and sunflowers had also been planted in the garden. White jasmine, roses, honeysuckle and passion flower were planted to climb up the walls of the house.


Bolling Hall is one of the oldest buildings in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is currently used as a museum and education centre. The building is about a mile from the centre of Bradford in East Bowling. Its surroundings are suburban in character.
Before the Industrial Revolution, Bradford was a small town and difficult to defend as it lay in a basin. However, Bolling Hall occupies a commanding position on a hillside. The earliest part of this building, dating from the 14th century, has been interpreted as a peel tower, although Bradford is somewhat outside the typical geographical area for these defensive structures.
The Manor of Bolling (Bollinc) is first mentioned in Domesday Book and was at that time in the possession of a man named Sindi.  The manor then came under the control of Ilbert de Lacy. By 1316 the manor was owned by William Bolling, and Bollings owned the estate until the late 15th century when control went to the Tempests who held the estate until 1649. The estate changed hands several times thereafter until eventually it was let to several tenants until being presented to Bradford Corporation in 1912. It was opened as a museum three years later.
During the second siege of Bradford in 1643, during the English Civil War, the house was a Royalist base. On this occasion the Royalists took the town, which had strong Parliamentarian sympathies, and it was thought that the victors would put the inhabitants to the sword. There is usually material on display relating to the English Civil War including a death mask of Oliver Cromwell. In the 18th century, parts of the house were modernised by the architect John Carr, following a fire. The Hall was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1952.
The Bolling chapel at Bradford parish church, now Bradford Cathedral, was founded by the owners of Bolling Hall and was restored by the Tempest family in the 17th century but did not survive the 20th-century rebuilding of the Chancel.


Muncaster Castle is a privately owned castle overlooking the River Esk, about a mile east of the west-coastal town of Ravenglass in Cumbria, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.


The place is now corruptly known as "Muncaster", which first appeared in a Cumberland church register in 1577, the original name according to all old evidence and records being "Mulcaster", registered in the pipe rolls of Cumberland circa 1150 (also as Molecaster and Mulecaster in 1190 and 1236 respectively).
The placename "Muncaster" contains the Latin word castra, meaning "encampment", or "fort". It is suspected that the site of the castle lies on foundations dating to the Roman era, which, if they exist, may represent a castellum for the nearby Roman fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass.
The Muncaster estate was granted to Alan de Penitone in 1208. The oldest parts of the castle include the Great Hall and the 14th-century pele tower, a type of watch-tower fortification unique to the English-Scottish border region.
Between 1860 and 1866 Anthony Salvin extensively remodelled Muncaster Castle for the Barons Muncaster. Sir John Frecheville Ramsden, 6th Baronet discussed proposed modifications to the castle with Edwin Lutyens from 1916, but nothing came of these; Lutyens did design the Muncaster War Memorial, constructed in 1922, on a commission from Ramsden.
Muncaster's gardens include features designed to take advantage of views of the Esk Valley and the mountains.  There is an aviary containing owls and other raptor birds from Britain and overseas. There are daily flying displays of these birds. There is an indoor maze themed on the life of a field vole.
Muncaster Castle is still owned by the Pennington family, who have lived at Muncaster for at least 800 years, and a family residence. Until her death in 2011, Phyllida Gordon-Duff-Pennington and her husband Patrick Gordon-Duff-Pennington (1930–2021) worked for three decades to restore the castle from a "crumbling relic" and establish it as a place for tourism and events. It now has more than 90,000 visitors a year.
In October 2021, the castle was one of 142 sites across England to receive part of a £35-million injection into the government's Culture Recovery Fund.


Gainsborough Old Hall in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire is over five hundred years old and one of the best preserved medieval manor houses in England.
The hall was built by Sir Thomas Burgh in 1460. The Burghs were rich, flamboyant and powerful. Gainsborough Old Hall was not only their home, but also a demonstration of their wealth and importance. Burgh was a benefactor to Newark Church and also the founder of the Chantry and Alms House at Gainsborough. In 1470, the manor was attacked by Sir Robert Welles over a clash about lands, status, and honour, but it was not severely damaged. In 1484 Thomas entertained King Richard III in his hall. Henry VII intended to raise Thomas to the pre-eminence of a Barony, but no second writ was issued, nor was a patent.
In 1510, Thomas Burgh's son, Edward Burgh, 2nd Baron Burgh, was incarcerated at the Old Hall after being declared a lunatic, never having attended the House of Lords. He died in 1528, leaving his eldest son Sir Thomas as head of the family. He was regarded as 1st Baron Burgh, de jure 3rd. In 1529, Thomas' son and heir, Edward, married Catherine Parr, later Queen consort to King Henry VIII. The couple stayed at Gainsborough Old Hall until 1530, when they were granted their own manor in Kirton-in-Lindsey.
King Henry VIII visited Gainsborough twice: once in 1509, and again in 1541 with his fifth wife Queen Catherine Howard. The Queen was accused of indiscretions both at Gainsborough and Lincoln, and she was later executed. Catherine Parr, by this time widowed twice (Edward Burgh having died in 1533), became Henry's sixth wife.
When Thomas, the fifth Lord Burgh, died without an heir, the Hall was sold in 1596 to William Hickman, a merchant from London, who made many improvements, especially to the east wing. William and his mother Rose supported John Smyth and the Separatist movement, and allowed them to meet and worship at the hall from 1603 until they sailed to the low countries to find religious freedom and establish the Baptist movement. The Hickman family continued to play a prominent role in the development of Gainsborough and many became local members of Parliament. Sir Neville Hickman invited John Wesley to preach in the Great Hall several times in 1759, and in 1761 and 1764.
In 1720 a new house was built at Thonock on the edge of the town and the Old Hall became unoccupied. It remained in the family and was used for a variety of purposes.
Architecturally the Old Hall has changed very little over the years. It is principally a timber framed building, giving a characteristic 'striped' or 'black and white' appearance. On the north east corner is a brick tower. A splendid view of the town is available after a fifty-nine step climb to the top.
Today, the Hall with its elaborate timber roof survives, with a kitchen which is possibly the most complete medieval kitchen in England. The kitchen still contains many original features, including two open fireplaces, each large enough to roast an ox, and two bread ovens served by a third chimney.
The tower of the Old Hall is supposedly haunted by the Grey Lady, thought to be the daughter of the Lord of the Manor who fell in love with a poor soldier and planned to elope with him. Her father discovered the plan and locked her away in the tower where she died from a broken heart. According to local legend the girl's spirit still wanders the tower, endlessly waiting for her lover to arrive.
The house was looked after from 1949 by a volunteer group, The Friends of the Old Hall (FOHA), who saved the building and first opened it to the public. Sir Edmund Bacon gave it to the nation in 1970.  The house is now owned by English Heritage and is open to the public as a museum.  It is listed as Grade I for Heritage Protection.  The Friends organisation still exists, and provides volunteer guides and other expertise.


Holker Hall (pronounced Hooker by some) is a privately owned country house located about 2 km to the southwest of the village of Cartmel in the ceremonial county of Cumbria and historic county of Lancashire, England. It is "the grandest [building] of its date in Lancashire ...by the best architects then living in the county." The building dates from the 16th century, with alterations, additions, and rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 19th century rebuilding was by George Webster in Jacobean Revival style and subsequent renovations were by E. G. Paley. Hubert Austin had a joint practice with Paley by the 1870s and they both rebuilt the west wing after it was destroyed by a major fire in 1871, only a decade after Paley's previous work on the structure. The fire also destroyed a number of notable artworks. Holker Hall is Paley and Austin's "most important country house commission." The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner expressed the opinion that the west wing is the "outstanding domestic work" of Paley and Austin. In 1970 the hall itself, together with its terrace wall, were designated Grade II* Listed buildings. The house stands in an estate of about 80 hectares, and is surrounded by formal gardens, parkland and woodland. Within the grounds are six structures listed at Grade II.
Since becoming a private house following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the estate has never been sold, having passed by inheritance from the Preston family to the Lowther family, and then to the Cavendish family. The house and grounds are open to the public at advertised times on payment of an admission fee.
In chronostratigraphy, the British sub-stage of the Carboniferous period, the "Holkerian" derives its name from Holker Hall.


Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century it was bought by the Preston family, who were local landowners. The first house was built in the early 16th century by George Preston. In 1644 the estate was confiscated from his successor, Thomas Preston, by Parliament, but was later restored to him. On the death of Thomas Preston, the estate passed to the Lowther family by the marriage of Thomas' heiress, Catherine, to Sir William Lowther, 1st Baronet, of Marske. In 1756 it passed again by marriage to Lord George Augustus Cavendish, and has remained in the ownership of the Cavendish family since.
The Jacobean house was altered in 1783–84 by John Carr of York. The parkland around the house was laid out in the late 18th century.


Fraeylemaborg is the most important of the borgen in the province of Groningen. These strong houses or keeps were built in the Middle Ages to store harvests and to protect their produce from robbers. Besides churches, these structures were the only buildings that used durable stone and masonry. In due time they grew to become centres of power and wealth. The Fraeylemaborg is located in the middle of the town of Slochteren which upon its discovery in 1959 gave its name to the largest gasfield in the world.
In 1475 there was already a farm with the name Frealemaheerd. In the archives of 1504 the name is found of one Remmer Fraeylema. The building originates from the 16th century. The left wing was built in the 17th century. In 1680 the borg was sold by Evert Rengers, son of the former lord of the manor, because of his family debts. It was bought by Henric Piccardt (married to Anna Elizabeth Rengers, Evert's sister), who borrowed the necessary funds from Stadtholder William III. Piccardt extensively rebuilt the borg and he also landscaped a huge formal garden in the style of Louis XIV's France. After Piccardt's death the borg fell into disrepair. In 1781 the Fraeylemaborg was sold to Hendrik de Sandra Veldman. He rebuilt it into the shape it has today. Among his innovations was the removal of two towers which had graced the front square.


The Fraeylemaborg ([ˈfraːiləmaːˌbɔr(ə)x]) is a borg in the village of Slochteren in the Netherlands. At present the Fraeylemaborg is a historic house museum. The museum had 31,509 visitors in 2013.


The Lucy family owned the land since 1247. Charlecote Park was built in 1558 by Sir Thomas Lucy, and Queen Elizabeth I stayed in the room that is now the drawing room. Although the general outline of the Elizabethan house remains, nowadays it is in fact mostly Victorian. Successive generations of the Lucy family had modified Charlecote Park over the centuries, but in 1823, George Hammond Lucy (High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1831) inherited the house and set about recreating the house in its original style.
Charlecote Park covers 185 acres (75 ha), backing on to the River Avon. Allegedly, William Shakespeare poached rabbits and deer in the park as a young man and was brought before magistrates as a result.
From 1605 to 1640 the house was organised by Sir Thomas Lucy. He had twelve children with Lady Lucy who ran the house after he died. She was known for her piety and distributing alms to the poor each Christmas. Her eldest three sons inherited the house in turn and it then fell to her grandchild Sir Davenport Lucy.
In the Tudor great hall, the 1680 painting Charlecote Park by Sir Godfrey Kneller, is said to be one of the earliest depictions of a black presence in the West Midlands (excluding Roman legionnaires). The painting, of Captain Thomas Lucy, shows a black boy in the background dressed in a blue livery coat and red stockings and wearing a gleaming, metal collar around his neck. The National Trust's Charlecote brochure describes the boy as a "black page boy". In 1735 a black child called Philip Lucy was baptised at Charlecote.
The lands immediately adjoining the house were further landscaped by Capability Brown in about 1760. This resulted in Charlecote becoming a hostelry destination for notable tourists to Stratford from the late 18th to mid-19th century, including Washington Irving (1818), Sir Walter Scott (1828) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (c 1850).
Charlecote was inherited in 1823 by George Hammond Lucy (d 1845), who married Mary Elizabeth Williams of Bodelwyddan Castle, from whose extensive diaries the current "behind the scenes of Victorian Charlecote" are based upon. GH Lucy's second son Henry inherited the estate from his elder brother in 1847. In 1890 artist Edith Mary Hinchley worked on a family tree image on deerskin that involved the creation of 500 heraldic shields. She did the work because she was a genealogist and a friend of the family. The "Lucy Deerskin" is still at Charlecote Park. After the deaths of both Mary Elizabeth and Henry in 1890, the house was rented out by Henry's eldest daughter and heiress, Ada Christina (d 1943). She had married Sir Henry Ramsay-Fairfax, (d 1944), a line of the Fairfax Baronets, who on marriage assumed the name Fairfax-Lucy.
From this point onwards, the family began selling off parts of the outlying estate to fund their extensive lifestyle, and post-World War II in 1946, Sir Montgomerie Fairfax-Lucy, who had inherited the residual estate from his mother Ada, presented Charlecote to the National Trust in-lieu of death duties. Sir Montgomerie was succeeded in 1965 by his brother, Sir Brian, whose wife, Lady Alice, researched the history of Charlecote, and assisted the National Trust with the restoration of the house.


Bolsover castle was granted to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, by King Edward VI in 1553. Following Shrewsbury’s death in 1590, his son Gilbert, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, sold the ruins of Bolsover Castle to his step-brother and brother-in-law Sir Charles Cavendish, who wanted to build a new castle on the site. Working with the famous builder and designer Robert Smythson, Cavendish’s castle was designed for elegant living rather than defence, and was unfinished at the time of the two men’s deaths, in 1614 and 1617 respectively. Accounts survive for building the early stages of the "Little Castle." Unusually for this period female labour was recorded, and the women's names or husband's names are given.
The building of the castle was continued by Cavendish’s two sons, William and John, who were influenced by the Italian-inspired work of the architect Inigo Jones. The tower, known today as the 'Little Castle', was completed around 1621. Construction was interrupted by the Civil Wars of 1642 to 1651, during which the castle was taken by the Parliamentarians, who slighted it, when it fell into a ruinous state. William Cavendish, who was created Marquess of Newcastle in 1643 and Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1665, added a new hall and staterooms to the Terrace Range, and by the time of his death in 1676 the castle had been restored to good order. The main usage of the building extended over twenty years, and it is presumed that the family lived at the castle towards the end of that period. It then passed through Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland into the Bentinck family, and ultimately became one of the seats of the Earls and Dukes of Portland. After 1883, the castle was uninhabited, and in 1945 it was given to the nation by the 7th Duke of Portland. The castle is now in the care of English Heritage.
In 2017 the site was voted the most haunted site by English Heritage staff.Antiques Roadshow was held at the castle in July 2015.
Bolsover Castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a "nationally important" historic building and archaeological site which has been given protection against unauthorised change. It is also a Grade I listed building (first listed in 1985) and recognised as an internationally important structure.


Bolsover Castle is in the town of Bolsover (grid reference SK471707), in the north-east of the English county of Derbyshire. Built in the early 17th century, the present castle lies on the earthworks and ruins of the 12th-century medieval castle; the first structure of the present castle was built between 1612 and 1617 by Sir Charles Cavendish. The site is now in the care of the English Heritage charity, as both a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.


Speke Hall is a wood-framed wattle-and-daub Tudor manor house in Speke, Liverpool, England. It is one of the finest surviving examples of its kind. It is owned by the National Trust and is a Grade I listed building.


Construction of the current building began under Sir William Norris in 1530, though earlier buildings had been on the site, parts of which are incorporated into today's structure. The Great Hall was the first part of the house to be built, in 1530. The Great (or Oak) Parlour wing was added in 1531. Around this time the North Bay was also added to the house. Between 1540 and 1570 the south wing was altered and extended. The west wing was added between 1546 and 1547. The last significant change to the building was in 1598, when the north range was added by Edward Norris. Since then there have only been minor changes to the Hall and gardens.
The oak frame, typical of the period, rests on a base of red sandstone surrounded by a now dry moat. The main beams of the house are stiffened with smaller timbers and filled with wattle and daub.
During the turmoil of the Reformation the Norrises were Roman Catholics so the house incorporated  a priest hole and a special observation hole built into a chimney in a bedroom to allow the occupant to see the approach to the house to warn the priest that people were coming. There is also an eavesdrop (a small open hole under the eaves of the house) which allowed a servant to listen in on the conversations of people awaiting admission at the original front door.
In 1612 a porch was added to the Great Parlour. A laundry and dairy were founded in 1860; the laundry was altered in the 1950s.
The house was owned by the Norris family for many generations until 1736 when Mary Norris, the heiress, married Lord Sidney Beauclerk.  After Mary's death in 1766 the house was leased to various tenants. Richard Watt, a Liverpool merchant, purchased the house and estate from the Beauclerks in 1795. The last surviving heir of the Watt family was Miss Adelaide Watt, who inherited the house and returned to it in 1878 at the age of 21 years.  She died in 1921, leaving the house and estate in trust for 21 years, during which time it was looked after by the staff under the supervision of Thomas Whatmore, who had been butler to Miss Watt.  At the end of this period, in 1943, the house passed into the ownership of the National Trust.  The house was administered by Liverpool City Corporation from 1946 until 1974 when it passed to Merseyside County Council who carried out a seven-year programme of major structural repairs and restoration which was completed in 1983. The National Trust took over full responsibility in 1986.
The gardens date from the 1850s. In the courtyard of the main building are two ancient yew trees, male and female, called 'Adam' and 'Eve'. First recorded in correspondence dating to 1712, they are estimated to be at least 500 years old.


Cragside is a Victorian country house near the town of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. It was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. An industrial magnate, scientist, philanthropist and inventor of the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun, Armstrong also displayed his inventiveness in the domestic sphere, making Cragside the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. The estate was technologically advanced; the architect of the house, Richard Norman Shaw, wrote that it was equipped with "wonderful hydraulic machines that do all sorts of things". In the grounds, Armstrong built dams and lakes to power a sawmill, a water-powered laundry, early versions of a dishwasher and a dumb waiter, a hydraulic lift and a hydroelectric rotisserie. In 1887, Armstrong was raised to the peerage, the first engineer or scientist to be ennobled, and became Baron Armstrong of Cragside.
The original building consisted of a small shooting lodge which Armstrong built between 1862 and 1864. In 1869, he employed the architect Richard Norman Shaw to enlarge the site, and in two phases of work between 1869 and 1882, they transformed the house into a northern Neuschwanstein. The result was described by the architect and writer Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel as "one of the most dramatic compositions in all architecture". Armstrong filled the house with a significant art collection; he and his wife were patrons of many 19th-century British artists. Cragside became an integral part of Armstrong's commercial operations: honoured guests under Armstrong's roof, including the Shah of Persia, the King of Siam and two future Prime Ministers of Japan, were also customers for his commercial undertakings.
Following Armstrong's death in 1900, his heirs struggled to maintain the house and estate. In 1910, the best of Armstrong's art collection was sold off, and by the 1970s, in an attempt to meet inheritance tax, plans were submitted for large-scale residential development of the estate. In 1971 the National Trust asked the architectural historian Mark Girouard to compile a gazetteer of the most important Victorian houses in Britain which the Trust should seek to save should they ever be sold. Girouard placed Cragside at the top of the list; in 1977, the house was acquired by the Trust with the aid of a grant from the National Land Fund. A Grade I listed building since 1953, Cragside has been open to the public since 1979.


Clitheroe Castle is a ruined early medieval castle in Clitheroe in Lancashire, England. It was the caput of the Honour of Clitheroe, a vast estate stretching along the western side of the Pennines.
Its earliest history is debated but it is thought to be of Norman origin, probably built in the twelfth century. Property of the de Lacy family, the honour later merged with the earldom and then Duchy of Lancaster. Given to George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle in 1660, the castle site remained in private ownership until 1920, when it was sold to the people of Clitheroe to create a war memorial. Today the buildings on the site are the home of Clitheroe Castle Museum.
The keep is the second smallest surviving stone-built keep in England. The castle was listed as a Scheduled Monument on 10 April 1915 (and later, under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 law). It was Grade I listed on 19 May 1950.


The 6.4-hectare (16-acre) castle grounds site was established as a public park after the castle site was acquired by the council. Of the £15,000 raised in 1920, £9,500 was spent to purchase the site, and the rest used laying out the park. It incorporates the early 18th-century garden terraces created for the steward's residence. Bowling greens, tennis courts, a putting green, a bandstand and pavilion café were installed, and specimen trees planted as part of the landscaping include a fern-leaf beech and a dawn redwood. The war memorial, a sculpture of a soldier standing atop a pedestal in a mourning pose with head bowed and arms reversed, is located south of the keep. The main inscription reads "Erected by the inhabitants of Clitheroe in grateful remembrance of their fellow townsmen who gave their lives in defence of their king and country in the Great War 1914 1918". The sculptor was Louis Frederick Roslyn, and the same figure is used in the memorial at Slaidburn. There is also a memorial plaque to those killed in the Second Boer War, installed in 1907.
The centrepiece of the old rose garden south of the castle is a turret from the Houses of Parliament, presented to the borough by its MP (Sir William Brass) in 1937, in commemoration of the coronation of King George VI. Also known as the Pinnacle, it dates back to the mid-1800s rebuilding work at the Place of Westminster. Clitheroe Civic Society has been running a project to restore the monument after it was discovered that corroding iron fixings have been damaging the stonework.
In April 2006, a new skatepark officially opened in the Woone Lane corner of the castle grounds, the £200,000 cost funded by the Lancaster Foundation charitable trust. Also opened in 2006 is a turf labyrinth designed by Jim Buchanan. In 2010, ten plaques featuring key events in the history of Clitheroe where installed on the walls of the creative activity area next to the keep. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the trials of the Pendle witches, a new long-distance walking route called the Lancashire Witches Walk has been created. Ten tercet waymarkers, designed by Stephen Raw, each inscribed with a verse of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy have been installed along the route, with the fourth located here.
The town's annual Guy Fawkes Night bonfire fireworks display is among a number of regular events staged.


Ownership of the castle subsequently passed down through the family to the Dukes of Buccleuch. A plan of the castle, dated 1723 is thought to have been created when a new house was built for the steward. However it seems that around this time much of the remaining curtain wall was demolished, with garden terraces created. The castle continued to operate as the administrative centre for Blackburnshire until 1822 when the town hall in Church Street was built.
In 1848, with the ruined keep in danger of collapse it was decided to undertake a series of repairs. At least £221 was spent on the work which included re-building the staircase tower, considerable work to the eastern corner, refacing areas of the interior and exterior with Chatburn limestone, and the installation of a series of buttresses on the southwest and southeast walls.
Before he died in 1878 Dixon Robinson resided at the castle for over 40 years as Steward of the Honour of Clitheroe.
The castle site was purchased by public subscription by the then borough council from Lord Montagu of Beaulieu for £9,500 in November 1920, to create a memorial to the 260 soldiers from the town who died in the First World War.
In the late 1980s the southeast elevation of the keep underwent substantial preservation work. As part of a large redevelopment of the museum, 2008 saw further restoration work to the keep and the first archaeological survey of the site was completed, including test digs.