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Bath Assembly Rooms
The Bath Assembly Rooms, designed by John Wood the Younger in 1769, are a set of assembly rooms located in the heart of the World Heritage City of Bath in England which are now open to the public as a visitor attraction. They are designated as a Grade I listed building. During the Georgian era Bath became fashionable, and the architects John Wood, the Elder, and his son laid out new areas of housing for residents and visitors. Assembly rooms had been built early in the 18th century, but a new venue for balls, concerts and gambling was envisaged in the area between Queen Square, The Circus and the Royal Crescent. Robert Adam submitted a proposal that was rejected as too expensive. John Wood, the Younger raised funding through a tontine, and construction started in 1769. The new or upper assembly rooms opened with a grand ball in 1771 and became the hub of fashionable society, being frequented by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, along with the nobility of the time. The bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fashion Museum, Bath
The Fashion Museum (known before 2007 as the Museum of Costume) is housed in the Assembly Rooms in Bath, Somerset, England. The collection was started by Doris Langley Moore, who gave her collection of costumes to the city of Bath in 1963. The museum focuses on fashionable dress for men, women and children from the late 16th century to the present day and has more than 100,000 objects. The earliest pieces are embroidered shirts and gloves from about 1600. The Museum receives about 100,000 visitors annually. Dress of the Year Every year from its creation in 1963, an independent fashion expert has been asked to select a dress for entry into this part of the collection. The designers whose work is represented include: Mary Quant, John Bates, Ossie Clark, Jean Muir, Bill Gibb, Giorgio Armani, John Galliano, Ralph Lauren, Alexander McQueen, Donatella Versace and Alber Elbaz. Location In 2019, the National Trust, who owns the Assembly Rooms, exercised a break clause A bre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tontine
A tontine () is an investment linked to a living person which provides an income for as long as that person is alive. Such schemes originated as plans for governments to raise capital in the 17th century and became relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tontines enable subscribers to share the risk of living a long life by combining features of a group annuity with a kind of mortality lottery. Each subscriber pays a sum into a trust and thereafter receives a periodical payout. As members die, their payout entitlements devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each continuing payout increases. On the death of the final member, the trust scheme is usually wound up. Tontines are still common in France. They can be issued by European insurers under the Directive 2002/83/EC of the European Parliament. The Pan-European Pension Regulation passed by the European Commission in 2019 also contains provisions that specifically permit next-generation pension produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circus (Bath)
The Circus is a historic ring of large townhouses in the city of Bath, Somerset, England, forming a circle with three entrances. Designed by architect John Wood, the Elder, it was built between 1754 and 1769, and is regarded as a pre-eminent example of Georgian architecture. The name comes from the Latin ''circus'', meaning a ring, oval or circle. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building. The Circus is divided into three segments of equal length, with a lawn in the centre. Each segment faces one of the three entrances, ensuring a classical façade is always presented straight ahead. History The Circus, originally called King's Circus, was designed by the architect John Wood, the Elder. Convinced that Bath had been the principal centre of Druid activity in Britain, Wood surveyed Stonehenge, which has a diameter of at the outer earth bank, and designed the Circus with a diameter to mimic this. Wood died less than three months after the first stone was laid; hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Allen
Ralph Allen (1693 – 29 June 1764) was an entrepreneur and philanthropist, who was notable for his reforms to the British postal system. Allen was born in Cornwall but moved to Bath to work in the post office, becoming the postmaster at the age of 19. He made the system more efficient and took over contracts for the mail system to cover England to the borders of Scotland and into South Wales. He bought local stone mines from his postal profits and had Prior Park built as his house to show off the versatility of the local Bath stone, using the old post office as his town house. With the architect John Wood the Elder, the stone he mined was used in the building work for the development of the Georgian city. However, the mines did not consistently make a profit and Allen subsidised them from his postal profits. After his death, he was buried in a pyramid-topped tomb in Claverton churchyard. He is commemorated in the names of streets and schools in the city of Bath and was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combe Down And Bathampton Down Mines
Combe Down and Bathampton Down Quarries () make up a 6.22 hectare (15.37 acre) Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Bath and North East Somerset, England, important for its bat population. The disused quarries date from the 17th and 18th centuries and were the source of Bath stone for the city of Bath and elsewhere in the UK. A five-year project to stabilise the quarry workings was largely completed by November 2009. Geology Combe Down forms a plateau capped by Great Oolite limestones between the valley of the River Avon and Horsecombe Vale. The geology of the region is dominated by rocks of Middle and Early Jurassic ages. The Great Oolite is the uppermost lithology, underlain by the clays of the Fuller's Earth Formation, which in turn is underlain by limestones of the Inferior Oolite and the Midford Sands of the Lias. The Great and Inferior Oolite formations provide effective aquifers (rock in which water can be stored and pass through) for public and private wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when these minerals precipitate out of water containing dissolved calcium. This can take place through both biological and nonbiological processes, though biological processes, such as the accumulation of corals and shells in the sea, have likely been more important for the last 540 million years. Limestone often contains fossils which provide scientists with information on ancient environments and on the evolution of life. About 20% to 25% of sedimentary rock is carbonate rock, and most of this is limestone. The remaining carbonate rock is mostly dolomite, a closely related rock, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, . ''Magnesian limestone'' is an obsolete and poorly-defined term used variously for dolomite, for limes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Stuart
The House of Stuart, originally spelt Stewart, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been held by the family progenitor Walter fitz Alan (c. 1150). The name Stewart and variations had become established as a family name by the time of his grandson Walter Stewart. The first monarch of the Stewart line was Robert II, whose male-line descendants were kings and queens in Scotland from 1371, and of England and Great Britain from 1603, until 1714. Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought up in France where she adopted the French spelling of the name Stuart. In 1503, James IV married Margaret Tudor, thus linking the royal houses of Scotland and England. Elizabeth I of England died without issue in 1603, and James IV's great-grandson (and Mary's only son) James VI of Scotland succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland as James I in the Union of the Crowns. The Stuarts wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society For The Protection Of Ancient Buildings
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in Victorian England. "Ancient" is used here in the wider sense rather than the more usual modern sense of "pre-medieval." Morris was particularly concerned about the practice, which he described as "forgery", of attempting to return functioning buildings to an idealized state from the distant past, often involving the removal of elements added in their later development, which he thought had contributed to their interest as documents of the past. Instead, he proposed that ancient buildings should be repaired, not restored, to protect as cultural heritage their entire history. Today, these principles are widely accepted. The architect A.R. Powys served as the Secretary of the SPAB for 25 years in the early 20th century. Organization and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chandelier
A chandelier (; also known as girandole, candelabra lamp, or least commonly suspended lights) is a branched ornamental light fixture designed to be mounted on ceilings or walls. Chandeliers are often ornate, and normally use incandescent light bulbs, though some modern designs also use fluorescent lamps and recently LEDs. Classic chandeliers have arrays of hanging crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light, while contemporary chandeliers assume a more minimalist design that does not contain prisms and illuminate a room with direct light from the lamps, sometimes also equipped with translucent glass covering each lamp. Modern chandeliers have a more modernized design that uses LEDs, and combines the elements of both classic and contemporary designs; some are also equipped with refractive crystal prisms or small mirrors. Chandeliers are distinct from pendant lights, as they usually consist of multiple lamps and hang in branched frames, whereas pendant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Powell And Sons
The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were London-based English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained glass window manufacturers. As ''Whitefriars Glass'', the company existed from the 17th century, but became well known as a result of the 19th-century Gothic Revival and the demand for stained glass windows. History Early years In 1834 James Powell (1774–1840), then a 60-year-old London wine merchant and entrepreneur of the same family as the founder of the Scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, purchased the Whitefriars Glass Company, a small glassworks off Fleet Street in London, believed to have been established in 1680. Powell, and his sons Arthur and Nathanael, were newcomers to glass making, but soon acquired the necessary expertise. They experimented and developed new techniques, devoting a large part of their production to the creating of church stained glass windows. The firm acquired a large number of patents for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tea House
A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment which only serves cream teas. Although the function of a tearoom may vary according to the circumstance or country, teahouses often serve as centers of social interaction, like coffeehouses. Some cultures have a variety of distinct tea-centered establishments of different types, depending on the national tea culture. For example, the British or American tearoom serves afternoon tea with a variety of small snacks. Asia In China, Japan and Nepal, a teahouse ( Chinese: , or , ; Japanese: ; Standard Nepali: ) is traditionally a place which offers tea to its customers. People gather at teahouses to chat, socialize and enjoy tea, and young people often meet at teahouses for dates. The Guangdong (Cantonese) style teahouse is particularly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
