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Hawksmoor (novel)
''Hawksmoor'' is a 1985 novel by English writer Peter Ackroyd. It won Best Novel at the 1985 Whitbread Awards and the Guardian Fiction Prize. It tells the parallel stories of Nicholas Dyer, who builds seven churches in 18th-century London for which he needs human sacrifices, and Nicholas Hawksmoor, detective in the 1980s, who investigates murders committed in the same churches. ''Hawksmoor'' has been praised as Peter Ackroyd's best novel and an example of postmodernism. Story In the early 18th century, architect Nicholas Dyer is progressing work on several churches in London's East End. He is, however, involved in Satanic practices (something inculcated in him as an orphan), a fact which he must keep secret from all his associates, including his supervisor Sir Christopher Wren. This is all the more challenging since he indulges in human sacrifice as part of the construction of the buildings. Dyer's simmering contempt for Wren is brought closest to the surface in discussions the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd (born 5 October 1949) is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. Early life and education Ackroyd was born in London and raised on a council estate in East Acton, in what he has described as a "strict" Roman Catholic household by his mother and grandmother, after his father disappeared from the family home. He first knew that he was gay when he was seven. He was educated at St. Benedic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christ Church, Spitalfields
Christ Church Spitalfields is an Anglican church built between 1714 and 1729 to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor. On Commercial Street in the East End and in today's Central London it is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, on its western border facing the City of London, it was one of the first (and arguably one of the finest) of the so-called "Commissioners' Churches" built for the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, which had been established by an Act of Parliament in 1711. The purpose of the Commission was to acquire sites and build fifty new churches to serve London's new settlements. This parish was carved out of the circa medieval Stepney parish for an area then dominated by Huguenots (French Protestants and other 'dissenters' who owed no allegiance to the Church of England and thus to the King) as a show of Anglican authority. Some Huguenots used it for baptisms, marriages and burials but not for everyday worship, preferring their own chapels (their chapels w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Fire Of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small, although some historians have challenged this belief. The fire started in a bakery in Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September, and spread rapidly. The use of the major firefighting technique of the time, the creation of firebreaks by means of removing structures in the fire's path, was critically delayed due to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. By the time large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm which defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City. Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Plague Of London
The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that originated in Central Asia in 1331 (the first year of the Black Death), and included related diseases such as pneumonic plague and septicemic plague, which lasted until 1750. The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people—almost a quarter of London's population—in 18 months. The plague was caused by the ''Yersinia pestis'' bacterium, which is usually transmitted through the bite to a human by a flea or louse. The 1665–66 epidemic was on a much smaller scale than the earlier Black Death pandemic. It became known afterwards as the "great" plague mainly because it was the last widespread outbreak of bubonic plague in England during the 400-year Second Pandemic. London in 1665 The plague was endemic in 17th-century London, as it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedy, Restoration comedies, ''The Relapse'' (1696) and ''The Provoked Wife'' (1697), which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. He was Knight Bachelor, knighted in 1714.Robert Chambers, Book of Days Vanbrugh was in many senses a radical throughout his life. As a young man and a committed British Whig Party, Whig, he was part of the scheme to overthrow James II of England, James II and put William III of England, William III on the throne. He was imprisoned by the French as a political prisoner. In his career as a playwright, he offended many sections of English Restoration, Restoration and 18th century society, not only by the sexual explicitness of his plays, but also by their messages in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred ''tumuli'' (burial mounds). Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, althou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its beginnings in prehistoric times. Anatomy is inherently tied to developmental biology, embryology, comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, and phylogeny, as these are the processes by which anatomy is generated, both over immediate and long-term timescales. Anatomy and physiology, which study the structure and function (biology), function of organisms and their parts respectively, make a natural pair of related disciplines, and are often studied together. Human anatomy is one of the essential basic research, basic sciences that are applied in medicine. The discipline of anatomy is divided into macroscopic scale, macroscopic and microscopic scale, microscopic. Gross anatomy, Macroscopic anatomy, or gross anatomy, is the examination of an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710. The principal creative responsibility for a number of the churches is now more commonly attributed to others in his office, especially Nicholas Hawksmoor. Other notable buildings by Wren include the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and the south front of Hampton Court Palace. Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a founder of the Royal Society and served as its president from 1680 to 1682. His scientific work was highly regarded by Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal. Life and works Wren was born in East Knoyle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Saint Hugh Of Lincoln
Hugh of Lincoln (1246 – 27 August 1255) was an English boy whose death in Lincoln was falsely attributed to Jews. He is sometimes known as Little Saint Hugh or Little Sir Hugh to distinguish him from the adult saint, Hugh of Lincoln (died 1200). The boy Hugh was never formally canonised, so "Little Saint Hugh" is a misnomer. Hugh became one of the best known of the blood libel 'saints'; generally children whose deaths were interpreted as Jewish human sacrifices. It is believed by some historians that the church authorities of Lincoln steered events in order to establish a profitable flow of pilgrims to the shrine of a martyr and saint. Hugh's death is significant because it was the first time that the Crown gave credence to ritual child murder allegations, through the direct intervention of King Henry III. As a result, in contrast to other English blood libels, the story entered the historical record, medieval literature and in ballads that circulated until the twentieth ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Alfege Church, Greenwich
St Alfege Church is an Anglican church in the centre of Greenwich, part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London. It is of medieval origin and was rebuilt in 1712–1714 to the designs of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Early history The church is dedicated to Alfege (also spelt "Alphege"), Archbishop of Canterbury, and reputedly marks the place where he was martyred on 19 April 1012, having been taken prisoner during the sack of Canterbury by Danish raiders the previous year. The Danes took him to their camp at Greenwich and killed him when the large ransom they demanded was not forthcoming. Accessed 5 July 2017 The church was rebuilt in around 1290, and Henry VIII was baptized there in 1491. The patronage of the church was given to the abbey at Ghent during the 13th century. Following the suppression of alien priories under Henry V, it was granted to the priory at Sheen with which it remained until transferred to the Crown by exchange under Henry VIII in 1530. During a storm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Anne's Limehouse
St Anne's Limehouse is a Hawksmoor Anglican Church in Limehouse, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was consecrated in 1730, one of the twelve churches built through the 1711 Act of Parliament. History St Anne's Limehouse was formed from part of the parish of St Dunstan's, Stepney, prior to the 18th century a large (but then thinly populated) East London parish that extended all the way down to the Thames River. As the population of London increased, growing parishes were subdivided. In 1709 a new parish in Limehouse was formed from part of the parish of St. Dunstan. The church may have been named for Queen Anne as she raised money for it by taxing coal passing along the River Thames. The building was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, as one of twelve churches built to serve the needs of the rapidly expanding population of London in the 18th century. The scheme never approached its ambitious target of 50 churches, but those built were also known as the Queen Anne Church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
