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St John The Divine, Kennington
St John the Divine, Kennington, is an Anglican church in London. The parish of Kennington is within the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. The church was designed by the architect George Edmund Street (who also built the Royal Courts of Justice on Strand, London) in the Decorated Gothic style, and was built between 1871 and 1874. Today it is a grade I listed building. The church stands on Vassall Road, Kennington, in Vassall Ward in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is near Oval tube station and the Oval Cricket Ground. The spire can be seen clearly for miles around. Architecture The church is regarded as a fine example of Victorian Gothic. The general construction is of red brick, but all parapets, window openings, doorways, etc. are dressed with stone. The upper part of the spire is entirely of stone. At over 260 feet, it is the tallest spire in south London and can be seen for miles around. The poet John Betjeman remarked that St John the Divine was "the most magnificent church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. The English church renounced papal authority in 1534 when Henry VIII failed to secure a papal annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The English Reformation accelerated under Edward VI's regents, before a brief restoration of papal authority under Queen Mary I and King Philip. The Act of Supremacy 1558 renewed the breach, and the Elizabethan Settlement charted a course enabling the English church to describe itself as both Reformed and Catholic. In the earlier phase of the English Reformation there were both Roman Catholic martyrs and radical Protestant martyrs. The later phases saw the Penal Laws punish Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television. Life Early life and education Betjeman was born John Betjemann. He was the son of a prosperous silverware maker of Dutch descent. His parents, Mabel (''née'' Dawson) and Ernest Betjemann, had a family firm at 34–42 Pentonville Road which manufactured the kind of ornamental household furniture and gadgets distinctive to Victorians. During the First World War the family name was changed to the less German-looking Betjeman. His father's forebears had actually come from the present day Netherlands more than a century earlier, setting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, and can serve a political purpose, be drawn solely for entertainment, or for a combination of both. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in editorial cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines. In literature, a ''caricature'' is a distorted representation of a person in a way that exaggeration, exaggerates some characteristics and oversimplifies others. Etymology The term is derived for the Italian ''caricare''—to charge or load. An early definition occurs in the English doctor Thomas Browne's ''Christian Morals'', published posthumously in 1716. with the footnote: Thus, the word "caricature" essentially means a "loaded portrait". Until the mid 19th century, it was commonly and m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gargoyle
In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between. Architects often used multiple gargoyles on a building to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize potential damage from rainstorms. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth. Gargoyles are usually elongated fantastical animals because their length determines how far water is directed from the wall. When Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were sometimes cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls. Etymology The term originates from the French ''gargouille,'' which in English is likely to mean "throat" or is otherwise known as the "gullet"; cf. Latin ''gurgulio, gula, gargula'' ("gullet" or "throat") and similar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, however, ''grotesque'' may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity. The English word first appears in the 1560s as a noun borrowed from French, and comes originally from the Italian ''grottesca'' (literally "of a cave" from the Italian ''grotta'', 'cave'; see grotto), an extravagant style of ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered at Rome at the end of the fifteenth century and subsequently imitated. The word was first used of paintings found on the walls of basements of ruins in Rome that were called at that time ''le Gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germans conducted mass air attacks against industrial targets, towns, and cities, beginning with raids on London towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940 (a battle for daylight air superiority between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force over the United Kingdom). By September 1940, the Luftwaffe had lost the Battle of Britain and the German air fleets () were ordered to attack London, to draw RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation.Price 1990, p. 12. Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, ordered the new policy on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 of the following 57 days and nights. Most notable was a large dayligh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clayton And Bell
Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient British workshops of stained-glass windows during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton (1827–1913) and Alfred Bell (1832–1895). The company was founded in 1855 and continued until 1993. Their windows are found throughout the United Kingdom, in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Clayton and Bell's commercial success was due to the high demand for stained-glass windows at the time, their use of the best-quality glass available, the excellence of their designs and their employment of efficient factory methods of production. They collaborated with many of the most prominent Gothic Revival architects and were commissioned, for example, by John Loughborough Pearson to provide the windows for the newly constructed Truro Cathedral. Background During the Medieval period, from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 until the 1530s, much stain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reredos
A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for example very grand carved chimneypieces. It also refers to a simple, low stone wall placed behind a hearth. Description A reredos can be made of stone, wood, metal, ivory, or a combination of materials. The images may be painted, carved, gilded, composed of mosaics, and/or embedded with niches for statues. Sometimes a tapestry or another fabric such as silk or velvet is used. Derivation and history of the term ''Reredos'' is derived through Middle English from the 14th-century Anglo-Norman ''areredos'', which in turn is from''arere'' 'behind' +''dos'' 'back', from Latin ''dorsum''. (Despite its appearance, the first part of the word is not formed by doubling the prefix "re-", but by an archaic spelling of "rear".) In the 14th and 15th cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stained Glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensional structures and sculpture. Modern vernacular usage has often extended the term "stained glass" to include domestic lead light and ''objets d'art'' created from foil glasswork exemplified in the famous lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany. As a material ''stained glass'' is glass that has been coloured by adding metallic salts during its manufacture, and usually then further decorating it in various ways. The coloured glass is crafted into ''stained glass windows'' in which small pieces of glass are arranged to form patterns or pictures, held together (traditionally) by strips of lead and supported by a rigid frame. Painte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altar Rails
The altar rail (also known as a communion rail or chancel rail) is a low barrier, sometimes ornate and usually made of stone, wood or metal in some combination, delimiting the chancel or the sanctuary and altar in a church, from the nave and other parts that contain the congregation. Often a gate, or just a gap, at the centre divides the line into two parts. Rails are a very common, but not inevitable, feature of Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist churches. They are usually about two feet 6 inches high, with a padded step at the bottom, and designed so that the wider top of the rail can support the forearms or elbows of a kneeling person. The altar rail is a modest substitute for earlier barriers demarcating the chancel, the area containing the altar, which was reserved (with greatly varying degrees of strictness) for officiating clergy (including boys as choristers and altar servers). Although it only emerged after the Protestant Reformation, it has been found con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Earp (sculptor)
Thomas Earp (1828–1893) was a British sculptor and architectural carver who was active in the late 19th century. His best known work is his 1863 reproduction of the Eleanor Cross which stands at Charing Cross in London. He specialised in sculpture for Gothic Revival churches and worked closely with the architect George Edmund Street in the 1860s and 1870s. Early life and career Earp was born in Nottingham, England. He studied at the Nottingham School of Art and Design and after completing his studies in the early 1850s went to work for the building contractor George Myers (who himself worked extensively for Pugin) in London. Around 1851 Earp founded his own architectural sculpture practice. By 1864 he was established at 1 Kennington Road, Lambeth, and employed 24 people. One of his projects, a marble and alabaster reredos, pulpit and baptismal font for the Church of St John the Baptist, Huntley, was particularly acclaimed and was exhibited at the Great Exhibitio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
