Industrial Modernism: the Sanitarium Health Food Company (Moorooka, Queensland)
Curaçao - Governor's Mansion and Fort AmsterdamThe Postcard
A postally unused tarjeta postal that was published by Prospero Baïz & Co. of Curaçao, D. W. I. The card has a divided back.
Fort Amsterdam
Fort Amsterdam is a fort located in Willemstad, Curaçao. It was constructed in 1634 by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) and served not only as a military fort, but also as the headquarters of the WIC.
Currently it serves as the seat of the government and governor of Curaçao. The fort is named after the Amsterdam chamber of the WIC and was considered the main of eight forts on the island.
History of Fort Amsterdam
In the 1630's the Dutch West India Company was searching for a new outpost in the Caribbean. The company set its sights on Curaçao, which was then a Spanish possession. In 1634 the Dutch admiral Johannes van Walbeeck, together with 200 soldiers, landed on the island and fought the 32 Spanish troops, who surrendered on the 21st. August 1634, after resisting for three weeks.
Van Walbeeck ordered the construction of a fort at the mouth of the Sint Anna Bay. Dutch soldiers and slaves from Angola built the fort, which became the headquarters of the WIC from the outset.
Conditions in the fort were poor however, due to a lack of drinking water and food. Soldiers almost started a mutiny that a raise in pay and improved rations quelled.
In 1636 the construction of the fort was completed. Most of the population then went to live in the fort, with the city of Willemstad eventually growing outside of it.
The fort was designed with three metre wide walls and five bastions, however only four were built. The fort had cannons that were located primarily to seaward.
In 1804 a cannonball fired by British captain John Bligh, of HMS Theseus, hit the church. Bligh led a small squadron that captured the fort in February 1804. The ball is still embedded in the southwestern wall of the fort church.
The Raid on The Fort
On the 8th. June 1929 the Venezuelan rebel Rafael Simón Urbina, with 250 soldiers, captured the fort. The Venezuelans plundered weapons, ammunition, and the island's treasury.
They also managed to capture the Governor of the island, Leonard Albert Fruytier, and hauled him off to Venezuela on the stolen American ship Maracaibo. Following the raid the Dutch government decided to permanently station marines and ships on the island.
Current Use of The Fort
The fort is currently part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Area of Willemstad, Inner City and Harbour, Curaçao. The offices of the cabinet and governor of Curaçao are located in the fort. There are also some government offices and a museum of the Protestant community located in the fort church.
The Yeronga Memorial Park (Brisbane, Queensland)
The Yeronga Memorial Park (Brisbane, Queensland)
Yeronga War Memorial (Yeronga Memorial Park, South East Queensland)
The Queensland Cultural Centre: the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) (Brisbane, Australia)
The Queensland Cultural Centre (Brisbane, Australia)
The Queensland Cultural Centre: Art Gallery (Brisbane, Australia)
The Queensland Cultural Centre (Brisbane, Australia)
Beacon Books B922X - Norman Bligh - The Sisters (back)
Beacon Books B922X - Norman Bligh - The Sisters
La pointe Vénus en baie de Matavai à Tahiti
St Michael’s, St Michael’s Road, Minehead, Somerset 25 March 2014
YX17 NEN (6520)
GN04 UEL (6421)
Our CSMA holiday cottage, Treworgie Barton Cottages, Cornwall 2019www.boundlessbreaks.co.uk/treworgie
About Property Investment By Zaki Ameer, Dream Design Propertywww.smartpropertyinvestment.com.au/author/zaki-ameer
6 Tips to Ensure You Profit In Real Estate - Zaki Ameer DDP Property Founderbit.ly/3bLEriK
Wilton Park - On The BridgeThe Postcard
A postally unused Valentine's Series postcard that has a divided back.
Wilton House and Park
Wilton House is an English country house at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, which has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years.
The first recorded building on the site of Wilton House was a priory founded by King Egbert circa 871. Through the munificence of King Alfred, the priory was granted lands and manors until it became wealthy and powerful.
However, by the time Wilton Abbey was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries set in motion by King Henry VIII, its prosperity was already on the wane. Following the seizure of the abbey, Henry presented it and its attached estates to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
The present Grade I listed house is the result of rebuilding after a 1647 fire, although a small section of the house built for William Herbert survives. Alterations were made in the early 19th. and early 20th. centuries. The house stands in gardens and a park which are also Grade I listed.
Early History of Wilton House
William Herbert was a favourite of the king. Following a recommendation to King Henry by King Francis I of France, for whom Herbert had served as a soldier of fortune, Herbert was granted arms after only two years.
In 1538, Herbert married Anne Parr, daughter of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal and sister of the future queen consort Catherine Parr (1543–1547).
The granting of an estate such as the Abbey of Wilton to William Herbert was an accolade, and evidence of his position at court. The first grants, dated March and April 1542, include the site of the late monastery, the manor of Washerne adjoining. as well as the manors of Chalke.
Herbert immediately began to transform the deserted abbey into a fine house. It had been thought that the old abbey had been completely demolished; however, following renovations after the Second World War, traces of the old abbey were found at lower levels of the existing walls.
Hans Holbein
It has long been claimed, without proof, that Hans Holbein the Younger re-designed the abbey as a rectangular house around a central courtyard, which is the core of the present house. Holbein died in 1543, so his designs for the new house would have had to have been very speedily executed.
However, the highly ornamented entrance porch to the new mansion, removed from the house around 1800 and later transformed into a garden pavilion, is to this day known as the "Holbein Porch" – a perfect example of the blending of the older Gothic and the brand-new Renaissance style.
Whoever the architect, a great mansion arose. Today only one other part of the Tudor mansion survives: the great tower in the centre of the east facade.
With its central arch (once giving access to the court beyond) and three floors of oriel windows above, the tower is reminiscent of the entrance to Hampton Court. It is flanked today by two wings in a loose Georgian style, each topped by an Italianate pavilion tower.
Inigo Jones
The Tudor house built by William Herbert, 1st. Earl of Pembroke, in 1551 lasted 80 years. On the succession of the 4th. Earl in 1630, he decided to pull down the southern wing and erect a new complex of staterooms in its place. It is now that the second great name associated with Wilton appears: Inigo Jones.
The architecture of the south front of Wilton House is in severe Palladian style. It was described at the time as in the "Italian Style," although being built of local stone and softened by climbing shrubs, it is quintessentially English to our eyes today.
While the remainder of the house is on three floors, the south front has a low rusticated ground floor, almost suggesting a semi-basement. Three small porches project at this level only, one at the centre, and one at each end of the facade, providing small balconies to the windows above.
The next floor is the piano nobile, at its centre the great double-height Venetian window, ornamented at second floor level by the Pembroke arms in stone relief.
The roofline is hidden by a balustrade. Each of the terminating 'wings' is crowned by a one-storey, pedimented tower resembling a Palladian pavilion. At the time, this was an innovation.
A document that Howard Colvin found at Worcester College library in Oxford in the 1960's confirmed that the original plan for the south facade was to have been over twice the length of that built; what we see today was intended to be only one of two identical wings linked by a central portico of six Corinthian columns.
The whole was to be enhanced by a great parterre whose dimensions were 1,000 feet by 400 feet. This parterre was in fact created, and remained in existence for over 100 years. The second wing however failed to materialise – perhaps because of the 4th. Earl's quarrel with King Charles I and subsequent fall from favour, or the outbreak of the Civil War; or simply lack of finances.
The State Rooms
The seven state rooms contained behind the quite simple south front of Wilton House are equal to those in any of the great houses of England.
State rooms in English country houses were designed, named, and reserved for the use of only high-ranking members of state as house-guests, often a monarch and his consort. State rooms usually occupy an entire facade of a house, and are nearly always of an odd number, because the largest and most lavish room (at Wilton the famed Double Cube Room) is placed at the centre of the facade, with symmetrical sequences of smaller (but still very grand) rooms leading from the central room to either side, ending at the state bedrooms, which are at either end of the facade.
The central salon was a gathering place for the court of the honoured guest. The comparatively smaller rooms in between the central room and the state bedrooms were designated for the sole use of the occupant of each bedroom, and would have been used for private audiences, withdrawing rooms, and dressing rooms.
In most English houses today the original intention has been lost, and these rooms have usually become a meaningless succession of drawing rooms; this is certainly true at both Wilton House and Blenheim Palace. The reason for this is that, over time, the traditional occupants of the state bedrooms began to prefer the comfort of a warmer, more private bedroom on a quiet floor with an en-suite bathroom. By the Edwardian Period, large house-parties had adapted the state rooms to use as salons for playing bridge, dancing, talking, and generally amusing themselves.
The magnificent state rooms at Wilton, designed by Inigo Jones and one or another of his partners, are:
--- The Single Cube Room: This room is a complete cube 30 ft long (9 m), wide and high. It has gilded and white pine panelling, and is carved from dado to cornice. The white marble chimney piece was designed by Inigo Jones himself. The room has a painted ceiling, on canvas, by the Italian painter Cavalier D'Arpino, representing Daedalus and Icarus. This room, hung with paintings by Lely and Van Dyck, is the only room thought to have survived the fire of 1647, and thus the only remaining interior of Inigo Jones.
--- The Double Cube Room: The great room of the house. It is 60 ft long (18 m), 30 ft wide (9 m) and 30 ft high (9 m). It was created by Inigo Jones and Webb circa 1653. The pine walls, painted white, are decorated with great swags of foliage and fruit in gold leaf. The gilt and red velvet furniture complements the collection of paintings by Van Dyck. Between the windows are mirrors by Chippendale and console tables by William Kent. The coffered ceiling, painted by Thomas de Critz, depicts the story of Perseus.
--- The Great Anteroom: Before the modifications to the house in 1801, a great staircase of state led from this room to the courtyard below: this was the entrance to the state apartments. Here hangs one of Wilton's greatest treasures: the portrait of his mother by Rembrandt.
--- The Colonnade Room: This was formerly the state bedroom. The series of four gilded columns at one end of the room would have given a theatrical touch of importance to the now-missing state bed. It is furnished today with 18th.-century furniture by William Kent. The room is hung with paintings by Reynolds, and has a ceiling painted in an 18th.-century theme of flowers, monkeys, urns, and cobwebs.
Other rooms are:
--- The Corner Room: The ceiling in this room, representing the conversion of Saint Paul, was painted by Luca Giordano. The walls of the room are covered in red damask and adorned with small paintings by Rubens and others.
--- The Little Ante Room: The white marble fireplace in this room, with inserts of black marble, is almost certainly by Inigo Jones. The panels in the ceiling were painted by Lorenzo Sabbatini (1530–1577), and therefore are far older than this part of the house. The room features paintings by Van Dyck and Teniers.
--- The Hunting Room: This room, not shown to the public, is used as a private drawing room by the Herbert family. It is a square room with white panelling and gilded mouldings. The greatest feature of the room is the set of panels depicting hunting scenes by Edward Pierce painted circa 1653. These panels are set into the panelling rather than framed in the conventional sense.
Inigo Jones was a friend of the Herbert family. It has been said that Jones' original studying in Italy of Palladio and the other Italian masters was paid for by the 3rd. Earl, father of the builder of the south front containing the state rooms. There are in existence designs for gilded doors and panels at Wilton annotated by Jones.
In 1705, following a fire, the 8th. Earl rebuilt some of the oldest parts the house, making rooms to display his newly acquired Arundel marbles, which form the basis for the sculpture collection at Wilton today. Following this Wilton remained undisturbed for nearly a century.
Wilton House in the 19th. century and James Wyatt
The 11th. Earl (1759–1827) called upon James Wyatt in 1801 to modernise the house, and create more space for pictures and sculptures. The final of the three well-known architects to work at Wilton (and the only one well documented) was to prove the most controversial. His work took eleven years to complete.
James Wyatt was an architect who often employed the neo-classical style, but at Wilton for reasons known only to architect and client he used the Gothic style. Since the beginning of the 20th. century his work at Wilton has been condemned by most architectural commentators.
The negative points of his 'improvements' to modern eyes are that he swept away the Holbein porch, reducing it to a mere garden ornament, replacing it with a new entrance and forecourt. This entrance forecourt created was entered through an 'Arc de Triumph' which had been created as an entrance to Wilton's park by Sir William Chambers circa 1755.
The forecourt was bounded by the house on one side, with wings of fake doors and windows extending to form the court, all accessed by Chambers's repositioned arch, crowned by a copy of the life-size equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.
While not altogether displeasing as an entrance to a country house, the impression created is more of a hunting estate in Northern France or Germany.
The original Great Hall of the Tudor house, the chapel and painted staircase to the state apartments were all swept away at this time. A new Gothic staircase and hall were created in the style of Camelot. The Tudor tower, now the last remnant of William Herbert's house, escaped unscathed except for the addition of two 'medieval' statues at ground floor level.
There was however one huge improvement created by Wyatt – the cloisters. This two-storeyed gallery which was built around all four sides of the inner courtyard, provided the house with not only the much needed corridors to link the rooms, but also a magnificent gallery to display the Pembroke collection of classical sculpture.
Wyatt died before completion, but not before he and Lord Pembroke had quarrelled over the designs and building work. The final touches were executed by Wyatt's nephew Sir Jeffry Wyatville. Today, nearly two hundred years later, Wyatt's improvements do not jar the senses as much as they did those of the great architectural commentators James Lees-Milne and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell writing in the 1960's. That Wyatt's works are not in the same league of style as the south front, and the Tudor tower, is perhaps something for future generations to judge.
Secondary Rooms
Wilton is not the largest house in England by any means: compared to Blenheim Palace, Chatsworth, Hatfield and Burghley House, its size is rather modest. However, aside from the magnificent state rooms, a number of secondary rooms are worthy of mention:
--- The Front Hall: redesigned by Wyatt, access is gained from this room to the cloisters through two Gothic arches. The room is furnished with statuary; the dominating piece a larger than life statue of William Shakespeare designed by William Kent in 1743. It commemorates an unproved legend that Shakespeare came to Wilton and produced one of his plays in the courtyard.
--- The Upper Cloisters: designed by Wyatt but completed circa 1824 by Wyatville in the Gothic style contain neoclassical sculpture, and curios such as a lock of Queen Elizabeth I's hair, and Napoleon I's dispatch box, and paintings by the Brueghel brothers.
--- The Staircase: Designed by Wyatt, it replaces the muralled state staircase swept away during the 'improvements'. The imperial staircase is lined with family portraits by Lely. Also hanging here is a portrait of Catherine Woronzow, the only sister of 1st. Prince Vorontsov and the wife of the 11th. Earl; her Russian sleigh is displayed in the cloisters.
--- The Smoking Rooms: These rooms are in the wing attributed to Inigo Jones and John Webb. The cornices and doors are attributed to Jones. The larger of the two rooms contains a set of fifty-five gouache paintings of an equestrian theme painted in 1755. The room is furnished with a complete set of bureau, cabinets and break-front bookcases made for the room by Thomas Chippendale.
--- The Library: A large book-lined room over 20 yards long, with views to a formal garden and a vista leading to the 'Holbein' porch. This is used as a private room, and not shown to the public.
--- The Breakfast Room: A private small low-ceilinged room on the rustic floor of the south front. In the 18th. century this was the house's only bathroom; more of an indoor swimming pool, the sunken plunge pool was heated and the room decorated in the Pompeian style complete with Corinthian columns. Converted by the Russian Countess of Pembroke to a breakfast room circa 1815, it is today wallpapered in a Chinese design, the paper being an exact copy of that used in the original 1815 decoration of the room. The 18th. century furniture of a simulated-bamboo, Gothic style gives this private dining room a distinct oriental atmosphere.
Associated Buildings
Entrance Arch and Lodges
The north entrance to the house and the forecourt within it were created by Wyatt c.1801. The centrepiece is an ashlar arch, designed c.1758–62 by Sir William Chambers as a garden feature, and carrying a lead statue (probably of earlier date) of Marcus Aurelius on horseback. The structure has a pair of Corinthian columns at each corner and a dentil cornice, and the inner arch is on Doric columns and 18th.-century wrought-iron gates. On each side Wyatt added a single-storey lodge in ashlar, with a balustraded parapet. The whole is Grade I listed.
The Former Stables
Washern Grange, south of the house and on the other side of the Nadder, is said to be a 1630's rebuilding of an earlier stable block, and incorporates a 14th.-century barn which presumably belonged to the abbey. Built in brick with stone dressings and now several dwellings, the complex is Grade I listed. Washern was a manor and later a suburb of Wilton, which was absorbed into the grounds of Wilton House.
The Gardens and Grounds of Wilton House
The house is renowned for its gardens. Isaac de Caus began a project to landscape them in 1632, laying out one of the first French parterres seen in England. An engraving of it made the design influential after the royal Restoration in 1660, when grand gardens began to be made again. The original gardens included a grotto and water features.
The Palladian Bridge
After the parterre had been replaced by turf, the Palladian Bridge (1736–37, Grade I listed) over the River Nadder, 90m south of the house, was designed by the 9th. Earl in collaboration with architect Roger Morris. Balustraded stairs on each side lead through a pedimented arch into an open pavilion, and the central balustraded span has a high roof supported by a five-bay Ionic colonnade. The design was in part based on a rejected design by Palladio for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.
A copy of the bridge was erected at the much-visited garden of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, and three more were erected: at Prior Park, Bath; Hagley, Worcestershire; and Amesbury Abbey. Empress Catherine the Great commissioned another copy, known as the Marble Bridge, to be set up at the landscaped park of Tsarskoye Selo.
The Lost Settlement
The park includes an area formerly occupied by much of the village of Fugglestone, which was cleared away, including the site of a medieval leper hospital called the Hospital of St Giles.
Recent Developments
In the late 20th. century, the 17th. Earl had a garden created in Wyatt's entrance forecourt, in memory of his father, the 16th. Earl. This garden, which is enclosed by pleached trees, with herbaceous plants around a central fountain, has done much to improve and soften the severity of the forecourt.
In 1987 the park and gardens were listed Grade I. The house itself was Grade 1 listed in 1951.
As of 2012, the current earl, William Herbert, 18th. Earl of Pembroke, and his family live in the house. In 2006, Herbert told The New York Times Magazine that the Wilton estate has around 140 employees. Its 14,000 acres are divided into 14 farms, one of which is run by the estate (the others are rented to tenants) and more than 200 residential properties. Although the house is open to the public, Herbert and his wife occupy about a third of the house privately. Salisbury Racecourse and South Wilts Golf Course are also on the 14,000 acre estate.
Wilton House in Film and Television
Scenes from the John Cleese featurette 'Romance with a Double Bass' (1974) were filmed in the Double Cube Room.
The room was used for scenes in the Stanley Kubrick film 'Barry Lyndon' (1975), and in Ken Russell's 'The Music Lovers'.
In 'The Bounty' (1984) it represented the Admiralty building for the court martial of Captain Bligh for the loss of the Bounty.
The house was covered in some detail in the 1985 American television documentary 'Treasure Houses of Britain'.
The Palladian bridge and gardens were featured in the Blackadder II episode "Bells" (1986) and in the end titles of all episodes.
Rooms in Wilton House appear as rooms of Windsor Castle in 'The Madness of King George' (1994). The concert with the bell-ringers, and two later scenes with the Prince of Wales, were shot in the Double Cube Room. Scenes from 'Mrs. Brown' (1997) were filmed in the Double Cube Room, again portraying the interior of Windsor Castle.
Rooms in Wilton House were used for interior scenes at Pemberley (Chatsworth House was used for external shots) in the 2005 film adaptation of the novel 'Pride and Prejudice'. Scenes from 'The Young Victoria', a 2009 film about the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, were filmed at the house.
Wilton House played the role of Croft Manor in the 2018 movie 'Tomb Raider'.
The Double Cube Room appears in nearly every episode of Peter Morgan's series 'The Crown', where it is used to represent one of the formal rooms at Buckingham Palace.
The house and grounds were used to film scenes in the 2020 Autumn de Wilde film adaptation of the novel 'Emma', being the main location used for Mr Knightley's home, Donwell Abbey.
The 2020 Netflix series 'Bridgerton' used the house and grounds to film numerous scenes, including exterior shots of Hastings House.
Cheadle and gatley cemetery Bligh William Albert private memorial 15.59
Winchester Cathedral, Edward Henry Swinburne Bligh Memorial: St George
Industrial Modernism: the Sanitarium Health Food Company (Moorooka, Queensland)
140/365. One day - I will open this extremely fine, rare Caribbean Rum.
Thailand - Bangkok - Market - Rose Apple - 20
GN04 UEH (6418)
