|
Breckness House
Breckness House, sometimes known as Breckness Castle, is the site of the 17th century mansion, chapel and burial ground, built by George Graham (1565–1643), the Bishop of Orkney. It is located near Stromness, Orkney in Scotland. Historic Environment Scotland established the site as a scheduled monument in 1957. Description Breckness House is the ruined two-storey mansion built by the Bishop of Orkney, George Graham in 1633. It can be found on the southwest coast of Mainland, Orkney, about 3 km west of the town of Stromness. The house is a large L-shaped building and was built with rubble and clay. The remaining walls stand two storeys high. The house's central block measures by . A wing to the central structure extends north at the east end of the central building and is wide. There is an enclosure visible on the south of the house that was most likely a garden. The entrance to the house originally displayed a panel with the arms and crest of Bishop Graham and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garderobe
Garderobe is a historic term for a room in a medieval castle. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives as its first meaning a store-room for valuables, but also acknowledges "by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy". The word derives from the French , meaning "robes (or clothing) protector": thus, a closet or a toilet seat that would tend to prevent clothing from getting soiled. Its most common use now is as a term for a castle toilet. Store room is the French word for "wardrobe", a lockable place where clothes and other items are stored. According to medieval architecture scholar Frank Bottomley, garderobes were "Properly, not a latrine or privy but a small room or large cupboard, usually adjoining the chamber edroomor solar iving roomand providing safe-keeping for valuable clothes and other possessions of price: cloth, jewels, spices, plate and money." Toilet The term ''garderobe'' is also used to refer to a medieval or Renaissance toilet or a close stool ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Covenant
The National Covenant () was an agreement signed by many people of Scotland during 1638, opposing the proposed reforms of the Church of Scotland (also known as ''The Kirk'') by King Charles I. The king's efforts to impose changes on the church in the 1630s caused widespread protests across Scotland, leading to the organisation of committees to coordinate opposition to the king. Facing royal opposition to the movement, its leaders arranged the creation of the National Covenant, which was designed to bolster the movement by tapping into patriotic fervour and became widely adopted throughout most of Scotland. The Covenant opposed changes to the Church of Scotland, and committed its signatories to stand together in the defence of the nation's religion. Charles saw this as an act of rebellion against his rule, leading to the Bishops' Wars, the result of which required him to call an English Parliament. This parliament passed acts limiting the king's authority, and these disputes ulti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broch Of Gurness
The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village on the northeast coast of Mainland Orkney in Scotland overlooking Eynhallow Sound, about 15 miles north-west of Kirkwall. It once housed a substantial community. Description Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it (resembling the set-up at Mine Howe). It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground. The remains ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl's Palace, Birsay
The Earl's Palace in Birsay, Orkney, Scotland, is a ruined 16th-century castle. It was built by Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney (1533–1593), illegitimate son of King James V and his mistress Euphemia Elphinstone. The palace is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. History The castle was constructed in two phases. The first phase of work, begun in the 1570s, consisted of the great hall located in the south range, above the main door. Beside this was Lord Orkney's private chamber in the south-east corner tower. An inscription above the entrance, dated 1574, marks this phase. The second phase, completed in the 1580s, saw a new range containing a great hall and chamber built on the north side of the courtyard. The second phase probably followed Robert's acquisition of the Earldom of Orkney in 1581. After the death of Robert Stewart, the palace was used only occasionally by later earls of Orkney, and was not occupied after the mid-17th ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Runes
Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. In addition to representing a sound value (a phoneme), runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named (ideographs). Scholars refer to instances of the latter as ('concept runes'). The Scandinavian variants are also known as ''futhark'' or ''fuþark'' (derived from their first six letters of the script: ''Feoh, F'', ''Ur (rune), U'', ''Thurisaz, Þ'', ''Ansuz (rune), A'', ''Raido, R'', and ''Kaunan, K''); the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon variant is ''Anglo-Saxon runes, futhorc'' or ' (due to sound-changes undergone in Old English by the names of those six letters). Runology is the academic study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, runestones, and their history. Runology f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broch
A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy. Origin and definition The word ''broch'' is derived from Lowland Scots 'brough', meaning (among other things) fort. In the mid-19th century Scottish antiquaries called brochs 'burgs', after Old Norse ', with the same meaning. Place names in Scandinavian Scotland such as Burgawater and Burgan show that Old Norse ' is the older word used for these structures in the north. Brochs are often referred to as ''duns'' in the west. Antiquarians began to use the spelling ''broch'' in the 1870s. A precise definition for the word has proved elusive. Brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout Atlantic Scotland. The Shetland Amenity Trust lists about 120 sites in Shetland as candidate brochs, while the Royal C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Episcopal See
An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, making it synonymous with ''diocese''. The word ''see'' is derived from Latin ''sedes'', which in its original or proper sense denotes the seat or chair that, in the case of a bishop, is the earliest symbol of the bishop's authority. This symbolic chair is also known as the bishop's '' cathedra''. The church in which it is placed is for that reason called the bishop's cathedral, from Latin ''ecclesia cathedralis'', meaning the church of the ''cathedra''. The word ''throne'' is also used, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church, both for the chair and for the area of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The term "see" is also used of the town where the cathedral or the bishop's residence is located. Catholic Church Within Catholicism, each dio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newel
A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having straight flights it is the principal post at the foot of the staircase, but the term can also be used for the intermediate posts on landings and at the top of a staircase. Although its primary purpose is structural, newels have long been adorned with decorative trim and designed in different architectural styles. Newel posts turned on a lathe are solid pieces that can be highly decorative, and they typically need to be fixed to a square newel base for installation. These are sometimes called solid newels in distinction from hollow newels due to varying techniques of construction. Hollow newels are known more accurately as box newel posts. In historic homes, folklore holds that the house plans were placed in the newel upon completion of the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Graham (bishop)
George Graeme (1565–1643), Bishop of Dunblane and Bishop of Orkney, was a late sixteenth- and early seventeenth century Church of Scotland prelate. Life He was the younger son of George Grahame Laird of Inchbraikie and his wife, Marion ("Mary") Rollo, daughter of Rollo of Duncrub. He was a great-grandson of William Graham, 1st Earl of Montrose. Originally (from 1589) minister of Clunie he translated to Auchtergaven in 1595 and further translated to Scone in 1601, and then in February 1603, he received crown provision to the bishopric of Dunblane, vacant by the resignation of Andrew Graham. George had to wait a few years to obtain consecration, but was consecrated at some date between 21 October 1610 and 3 May 1611. On 26 August 1615, he was translated to the bishopric of Orkney. He held that bishopric for more than three decades. Graeme, along with all other bishops of Scotland, was deprived of his see on 18 November 1638. He renounced his rights to the bishopric a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skaill House
Skaill House is a historic manor house in Sandwick parish on Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands, Scotland. The house overlooks the neolithic site, Skara Brae, and the Bay of Skaill. In 1977, the house was included in the List of Scottish Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. History Skaill House is situated near to the site of Skara Brae, and the lands were in use from neolithic times. Various finds from the Bronze- and Iron Ages show continuing use. The name ''Skaill'' derives from the Old Norse word for "hall". The names of all the surrounding farms are also derived from that language, and it is presumed that the lands have been permanently settled for over a thousand years. After the execution of Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney for treason in 1615, the lands were given to the Bishop of Orkney. In 1620, Bishop George Graham constructed a simple manor house, the first part of what is now Skaill House. His son became the laird of the estate, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.JPG "Click for more on -> Earl's Palace, Birsay")
